Helena Faust

Karolinska Institutet | KI · Department of Laboratory Medicine

Although HPV vaccines are highly efficacious, a notable proportion of quadrivalent vaccinees are HPV18 seronegative post-vaccination. We have investigated this findings' validity by comparing vaccine-induced antibody responses using two different immunoassays. 6558 16-17-year-old females participated in the FUTURE II (NCT00092534) and PATRICIA (NCT...

Background Cervical cancer elimination through human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programs requires the attainment of herd effect. Due to its uniquely high basic reproduction number, the vaccination coverage required to achieve herd effect against HPV type 16 exceeds what is attainable in most populations. We have compared how gender-neutral an...

Background Human papillomaviruses (HPV) cause several human cancers. Bivalent (Cervarix) and quadrivalent (qGardasil) HPV vaccines both contain virus-like particles of the major oncogenic HPV types 16 and 18, but cross-protect also against some non-vaccine types. However, data on long-term sustainability of the cross-reactive antibody responses to...

Large scale human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination against the most oncogenic high‐risk human papillomavirus (HPV) types 16/18 is rapidly reducing their incidence. However, attempts at assessing if this leads to an increase of nonvaccine targeted HPV types have been hampered by several limitations, such as the inability to differentiate secular tre...

Background: Men living with HIV (MLHIV) have a high burden of human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancer. Understanding serological dynamics of HPV in men can guide decisions on introducing HPV vaccination and monitoring impact. We determined HPV seroprevalence and evaluated factors associated with HPV seroconversion among MLHIV in Johannesburg, So...

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines protect against infections with the most oncogenic HPV types, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and cervical cancer. We investigated whether development of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) lesions in HPV‐vaccinated women is associated with vaccine‐targeted HPV types or not. Linkage of the Swedish v...

Background The HPV seropositivity following natural infection can provide data on cumulative exposure to HPV. Studies evaluating seropositivity prospectively among men living with HIV (MLHIV) are few. We aimed to determine HPV type specific seroprevalence and seroconversion among MLHIV following natural HPV infection. Methods We enrolled 304 sexua...

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) basic reproductive numbers are low, except for HPV type 16. Thus, vaccination can induce herd effects to reduce the prevalence of many HPV types, especially if gender-neutral vaccination strategy and a vaccine with broad protection against HPV types are used Methods: We used a cluster-randomized trial implemen...

Background: Most cervical cancers are caused by vaccine-preventable infections with human papillomaviruses (HPV). HPV prophylactic vaccines Gardasil™ and Cervarix™ have been widely used for >10 years and are reported to induce high antibody levels. A head-to-head comparison of the antibody responses induced by the two vaccines has been performed o...

Background: Antibodies against human papillomaviruses (HPV) are biomarkers for current or past infections. We assessed whether antibodies against multiple HPV types were determinants of current multiple anogenital HPV infections, abnormal cytology and seropositivity for cutaneous HPVs. Methods: 1,848 Slovenian women attended two rounds of cervic...

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) serodynamics following infection has never been evaluated prospectively among women living with HIV (WLHIV). We determined HPV seroprevalence, seroconversion, and cervical HPV-DNA acquisition among WLHIV. Methods: Prospective study of 604 WLHIV in Johannesburg, South Africa aged 25-50 years. At baseline and...

Background: The antibody response against HPV-16 and -18 is well known, but many genital HPV types are oncogenic. We assessed the correlation between HPV DNA and antibodies to eleven HPV types. Methods: 2,024 women attending the organized national cervical cancer screening program in Slovenia were tested for cervical high-risk HPV DNA (HPV-16,-1...

Background: While vaccine-induced antibodies are known to confer protection against incident human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, there is inconsistent data regarding the protective effect of naturally acquired anti-HPV antibodies. Objectives: To estimate the protective effect of naturally acquired anti-HPV16 serum antibodies against incident a...

Incidence of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is rising in several countries. Intriguingly, large variations of HPV16 viral load and different proportions of the physical viral status among HNSCC have been reported. We analysed fresh biopsies of 275 HNSCC patients from the South Swedish Health Care R...

Background: HPV serology is important for studies of vaccine immunogenicity, but can not be performed in a comparable manner without international standardisation. Objectives: To find suitable candidate sera from naturally infected persons for use as International Standards (IS) for antibodies to high-risk HPVs, with priority for HPV-18. Study...

Ninety-one HIV-infected individuals (61 men and 30 women) were randomized to vaccination either with quadrivalent (Gardasil™) or bivalent (Cervarix™) HPV vaccine. Neutralizing and specific HPV-binding serum antibodies were measured at baseline and 12 months after the first vaccine dose. Presence of neutralizing and binding antibodies had good agree...

Background: Among head and neck cancers, human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) is associated with tonsillar carcinomas. Despite this, no HPV16-positive tonsillar cancer cell line has been established in nude mice. Methods: Fresh tonsillar carcinoma biopsies were obtained from 23 patients and implanted subcutaneously into nude mice (BALB/c, nu/nu)...

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare type of skin cancer that has a characteristically increased incidence among immunosuppressed subjects. The DNA of Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCV) is regularly found in most MCC tumors. We investigated whether Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCV) infection increases the risk for future Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC). Two...

To estimate seroprevalence of 11 high-risk (hr) HPV types and four low-risk (lr) HPV types among 20-64 years old Slovenian women participating in the population-based cervical cancer screening program. Serum samples from 3259 women were tested for HPV type-specific antibodies with a multiplexed pseudovirion-based serological assay (PsV-Luminex). Se...

To assess presence of virus DNA in skin lesions, swab samples from 82 squamous cell carcinomas of the skin (SCCs), 60 actinic keratoses (AKs), paraffin-embedded biopsies from 28 SCCs and 72 kerathoacanthomas (KAs) and fresh-frozen biopsies from 92 KAs, 85 SCCs and 92 AKs were analyzed by high throughput sequencing (HTS) using 454 or Ion Torrent tec...

Licensed human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, based on virus-like particles (VLP) self-assembled from major capsid protein L1, afford type-restricted protection against HPV types 16/18/6/11 (or 16/18 for the bivalent vaccine), which cause 70% of cervical carcinomas (CxCa) and 90% of genital warts. However, they do not protect against less prevalent...

Prophylactic vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV) based on Virus-Like Particles (VLPs) induce type-specific neutralizing antibodies against a small number of hypervariable residues positioned in surface-exposed loops of the major capsid protein L1. To investigate the importance of these residues for neutralization, cross-neutralization, L2 i...

We compared seroreactivity to Human papillomavirus (HPV) antigens measured with two different high-throughput assays. One method used GST-L1 fusion proteins and the other heparin-bound HPV pseudovirions as antigens and both methods used multiplexed fluorescent beads for detection. For six HPV types (5, 6, 15, 16, 32 and 38), seroreactivity could be...

Background: Serology for human papillomaviruses (HPV) types -16 and -18 is established as an important tool for studies of HPV vaccinology and epidemiology. However, as there are a large number of oncogenic genital types of HPV there is a need for development of high-throughput, validated HPV serological assays that can be used for more comprehens...

Infections during pregnancy have been suggested to be involved in childhood leukemias. We used high-throughput sequencing to describe the viruses most readily detectable in serum samples of pregnant women. Serum DNA of 112 mothers to leukemic children was amplified using whole genome amplification. Sequencing identified one TT virus (TTV) isolate b...

Suitably controlled serosurveillance surveys are essential for evaluating human papillomavirus (HPV) immunization programs. A panel of plasma samples from 18-year-old females was assembled, the majority of the samples being from recipients of the bivalent HPV vaccine. Antibody specificities were evaluated by three independent laboratories, and 3 po...

To validate whether Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCV) serology correlates with MCV infection, we compared real-time polymerase chain reaction results for MCV DNA on fresh-frozen biopsy specimens from various skin lesions and healthy skin from 434 patients to MCV serology results using viruslike particles (VLPs) and MCV neutralization assays. Sixty-fiv...

This study developed and validated a high-throughput human papillomavirus (HPV) serology method based on Luminex technology, using pseudovirions (PsVs) of eight mucosal HPV types (HPV-6, -11, -16, -18, -31, -45, -52 and -58) and two cutaneous HPV types (HPV-5 and -38) bound to heparin-coated beads. Analysis with neutralizing type-specific monoclona...

Gli3 is a key regulator of development, controlling multiple patterning steps. Here we report the generation of a scFv antibody specific to the repressor domain of human Gli3. We show that this scFv retains the binding capacity of its parent anti-Gli3 monoclonal antibody derived from hybridoma clone 5E1. When expressed in mammalian cells, the anti-...