Oral HPV infection is strongly associated with oropharyngeal cancer among subjects with or without the established risk factors of tobacco and alcohol use.

APO‐1 (Fas/CD95), a member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily, induces apoptosis upon receptor oligomerization. In a search to identify intracellular signaling molecules coupling to oligomerized APO‐1, several cytotoxicity‐dependent APO‐1‐associated proteins (CAP) were immunoprecipitated from the apoptosis‐sensitive human leukemic T cell line HUT78 and the lymphoblastoid B cell line SKW6.4. CAP1–3 (27–29 kDa) and CAP4 (55 kDa), instantly detectable after the crosslinking of APO‐1, were associated only with aggregated (the signaling form of APO‐1) and not with monomeric APO‐1. CAP1 and CAP2 were identified as serine phosphorylated MORT1/FADD. The association of CAP1–4 with APO‐1 was not observed with C‐terminally truncated non‐signaling APO‐1. In addition, CAP1 and CAP2 did not associate with an APO‐1 cytoplasmic tail carrying the lprcg amino acid replacement. Moreover, no APO‐1‐CAP association was found in the APO‐1+, anti‐APO‐1‐resistant pre‐B cell line Boe. Our data suggest that in vivo CAP1–4 are the APO‐1 apoptosis‐transducing molecules.

HPV appears to play an etiologic role in many cancers of the oropharynx and possibly a small subgroup of cancers of the oral cavity. The most common HPV type in genital cancers (HPV16) was also the most common in these tumors. The mechanism of transmission of HPV to the oral cavity warrants further investigation.

Human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) plays a role in the development of a subgroup of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC). However, uncertainty exists about the true impact of HPV in this tumor type as conflicting reports have been published with prevalence rates from 0 to 100%. We aimed to find a detection algorithm of a biologically and thus clinically meaningful infection, applicable for high-throughput screening of frozen and formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) specimens. By considering detection of HPV E6 oncogene expression in frozen biopsies as gold standard for a meaningful HPV infection, the value of several assays was evaluated on FFPE tumor specimens and sera of 48 HNSCC patients. The following assays were evaluated on FFPE tissue samples: HPV DNA general primer (GP)5+/6+ PCR, viral load analysis, HPV16 DNA FISH detection, HPV16 E6 mRNA RT-PCR, p16 immunostaining, and on corresponding serum samples detection of antibodies against the HPV16 proteins L1, E6 and E7. Comparing single assays on FFPE tissue samples detection of E6 expression by RT-PCR was superior, but application remains at present limited to HPV16 detection. Most suitable algorithm with 100% sensitivity and specificity appeared p16 immunostaining followed by GP5+/6+ PCR on the p16-positive cases. We show that clinically meaningful viral HPV infections can be more reliably measured in FFPE HNSCC samples in a standard and high throughput manner, paving the way for prognostic and experimental vaccination studies, regarding not only HNSCC, but possibly also cancer types with HPV involvement in subgroups such as penile and anal cancer.