Recent studies have further suggested that only particular PDZ pools or isoforms within the cell are susceptible to degradation [119] and [120], and that this function of E6 may be carefully regulated during the virus life-cycle [118]. Further studies are needed to precisely define the role of these interactions in vivo. Other unique characteristics of the high-risk E6 proteins include their capacity to upregulate telomerase activity [121], [122] and [123] and to maintain telomere integrity during repeated cell divisions, and their ability to mediate the degradation of p53 within the cell. Both high- and low-risk E6 proteins inactivate aspects of p53 function,

which suggests an important life-cycle function,

but only the high-risk types stimulate its ubiquitination and proteosome-dependent degradation [124], [125] and [126]. In fact the high-risk types use degradatory pathways selleck screening library to target many of their substrates. For E7, this involves components of the CUL2 ubiquitin ligase complex, while for E6 it involves the cellular ubiquitin ligase E6AP [127]. With the use of more advanced proteomics technology, it is becoming clear that both E6 and E7 have a very large number of cellular substrates, and that the identity of these substrates differs between HPV types of the same high-risk clade, as well as between the high- and low-risk groupings themselves [128]. Indeed, there appears to be no single characteristic that can define high-risk types check details as cancer-causing. This is exemplified by studies showing very little concordance between cancer risk, and the capacity of the E6 oncoproteins from the high-risk types to degrade p53, degrade PDZ substrates and induce keratinocyte

immortalisation. In the case of E6, recent structural studies are suggestive of a complex multimeric protein that has potential to associate with multiple protein partners at any given time [125] and [129]. While such functional differences Histone demethylase undoubtedly contribute to the respective abilities of the high- and low-risk HPV types to cause neoplasia and cancer, it is important to remember that a key function of the E6 and E7 proteins in most HPV types is not to promote basal cell proliferation, but rather, to stimulate cell cycle re-entry in the mid-epithelial layers in order to allow genome amplification. The expression of the E6 and E7 proteins in the upper epithelial layers allows the infected cell to re-enter S-phase, and for viral genome copy-number to rise. There is also a need for the viral replication proteins E1 and E2, which increase in abundance following the upregulation of the HPV ‘late’ or ‘differentiation dependent’ promoter [130]. In HPV16, this promoter (P670) resides within the E7 open reading frame near to nucleotide position 670.