Abstract

Papillomaviruses (PVs) are ubiquitous highly diverse group of circular double stranded DNA viruses. Nearly all the human papillomavirus (HPVs) that cause cancer are clustered in Alphapapillomavirus (αPV) genera and have a common ancestor. The aim of the study was to isolate and perform molecular characterization of alphapapilloma virus from male olive baboons (Papio anubis) that are maintained in a captive colony at the Institute of Primate Research, Nairobi, Kenya and establish their evolutionary relationship with known strains responsible for various species causing cervical cancer in human. Twenty (n=20) different genital swabs from sexually active male olive baboons were collected. Positive samples for αPV by nested PCR were 9/20 (45%). The nested PCR primers targeted a conserved region of L1 major capsid gene and aided in generating amplicons of 134bp. Only three amplicons with good quality bands (1C, 2C, and 4C) were further sequenced and analysed using MEGA X, Clustal W algorithm and DnaSP 5.10.01 software. Phylogenetic analysis through Neighbour-joining method indicated a close evolutionary relationship between subtype 2C and Human papillomavirus (AB745694) which is associated with human cervical cancer. Subtype 2C was found to be more close to 1C than 4C and other sequences of JF304764, EU490515, EF558839, AB745694, FJ598133 as well as EF591300 blasted from NCBI and treated as outgroup. On analysis of genetic diversity using DnaSP software, sequences of subtype 2C and 4C were found to harbour synonymous SNPs at position four and eight respectively hence indicating that the region is more conserved. Male olive baboon harbor αPV and may be a good model for study of the pathogenesis of HPV and also for testing therapeutic agents that target αPVs in both humans and non-human primates.