Low proteolytic processing of histone H3 in cervical tissue positive to hrHPV

Abstract During the different stages of cervical carcinogenesis there is an accumulation of epigenetic alterations leading to changes in gene expression. High-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) is a primary risk factor for cervical cancer (CC). Impaired proteolytic processing of histone H3 constitutes a potential epigenetic mechanism in CC. However, whether this event occurs in early stages of the HPV infection is unknown. Using human cervical samples with normal pathology but positive and negative to hrHPV, we identified that the H3 cleavage was low in the hrHPV positive cervix compared to the hrHPV negative cervix. These results suggest that low H3 processing previously observed in CC may be a primary effect of hrHPV infection.