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Bovine papillomavirus

I. General Information

1. NCBI Taxonomy ID:

2. Disease:

Warts

3. Introduction

Bovine papillomavirus (BPV) is a group of DNA viruses of the family Papillomaviridae that are common in cattle. Infection causes warts (papillomas and fibropapillomas) of the skin and alimentary tract, and more rarely cancers of the alimentary tract and urinary bladder. They are also thought to cause the skin tumour equine sarcoid in horses and donkeys. BPV provides an excellent model for studying papillomavirus molecular biology, and also allows the dissection of the processes by which this group of viruses cause cancer. Like other papillomaviruses, BPVs are small non-enveloped viruses with an icosahedral capsid around 50–60 nm in diameter.The capsid is formed of the L1 and L2 structural proteins, with the L1 C-terminus exposed. All BPVs have a circular double-stranded DNA genome of 7.3–8.0 kb. The genetic organisation of those BPVs which have been sequenced is broadly similar to other papillomaviruses. The open reading frames (ORFs) are all located on one strand, and are divided into early and late regions. The early region encodes nonstructural proteins E1 to E7. There are three viral oncoproteins, E5, E6 and E7; BPVs of the Xipapillomavirus group lack E6. The late region encodes structural proteins L1 and L2. There is also a non-coding long control region (LCR) (Wiki: Bovine papillomavirus).

4. Host Ranges and Animal Models

Cattle are the main species affected. BPV-1 and BPV-2 can also induce sarcomas and fibrosarcomas in other mammals, including equids (equine sarcoid) and, experimentally, rabbits, hamsters and mice (Wiki: Bovine papillomavirus).

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