High-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) E7 proteins enable oncogenic transformation of HPV-infected cells by inactivating host cellular proteins. High-risk but not low-risk HPV E7 target PTPN14 for proteolytic degradation, suggesting that PTPN14 degradation may be related to their oncogenic activity. HPV infects human keratinocytes but the role of PTPN14 in keratinocytes and the consequences of PTPN14 degradation are unknown. Using an HPV16 E7 variant that can inactivate retinoblastoma tumor suppressor (RB1) but cannot degrade PTPN14, we found that high-risk HPV E7-mediated PTPN14 degradation impairs keratinocyte differentiation. Deletion of PTPN14 from primary human keratinocytes decreased keratinocyte differentiation gene expression. Related to oncogenic transformation, both HPV16 E7-mediated PTPN14 degradation and PTPN14 deletion promoted keratinocyte survival following detachment from a substrate. PTPN14 degradation contributed to high-risk HPV E6/E7-mediated immortalization of primary keratinocytes and HPV + but not HPV − cancers exhibit a gene-expression signature consistent with PTPN14 inactivation. We find that PTPN14 degradation impairs keratinocyte differentiation and propose that this contributes to high-risk HPV E7-mediated oncogenic activity independent of RB1 inactivation.H uman papillomaviruses (HPVs) are nonenveloped, doublestranded DNA viruses that infect and replicate in the stratified squamous epithelium. HPV initially infects keratinocytes in the basal, proliferative layer of the epithelium, and subsequent steps in the HPV replicative cycle-including viral genome amplification, encapsidation, and egress-are dependent on keratinocyte differentiation (1-3). However, HPV genome amplification also requires components of the cellular machinery for DNA replication that are not expressed in differentiating cells. Thus, productive HPV infection must uncouple proliferation and differentiation in the epithelium. Infection with one of the 13-15 "high-risk" HPVs causes nearly all cervical cancer, some other anogenital cancer, and an increasing proportion of HPV + head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) (4-6). In total, HPV infection causes ∼5% of cancers worldwide.The high-risk HPV E7 oncoprotein is able to immortalize human keratinocytes and the efficiency of immortalization is increased by high-risk HPV E6 (7-9). A well-characterized activity of many HPV E7 is to bind and inactivate the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor (RB1) via the LxCxE motif present in HPV E7 conserved region 2 (10-12). In addition, HPV16 E7 can direct the proteasome-mediated degradation of RB1 (13-16). RB1 inactivation releases the inhibition of E2F transcription factors (TF), thus allowing cell cycle progression and acting as a major driver of proliferation. HPV E7 also promotes proliferation by inhibiting the CDK inhibitors p21 WAF1/CIP1 and p27 . In addition to promoting proliferation, transcriptional studies indicate that human cells harboring high-risk HPV genomes express lower levels of differentiation marker genes and that...