To provide an update of ongoing activities at the International HPV Reference Center.
The center i) receives clones of potentially novel HPV types, clones them again and re-sequences them. If the confirmed sequence is found to represent a novel type, a unique HPV type number is assigned, reported to the originator and immediately posted on www.hpvcenter.se. ii) Distributes the reference clones, for academic research use, under Material Transfer Agreements agreed upon with the originator. iii) Provides a service with preliminary checking of whether new sequences may represent novel types. iv) issues international proficiency panels for HPV genotyping.
Since 2013, 332 reference clones have been transferred to 55 different laboratories worldwide. Since the reference center was transferred from Heidelberg to Stockholm in 2012, 49 clones with putative new types have been submitted. Forty-six clones have been confirmed as novel types and assigned official numbers. One clone was found to be a subtype and two clones were not novel (recently established types, but not yet in GenBank). The g-genus now contains 90 HPV types, surpassing the diversity of the µ and β genera, which contain 65 and 51 HPV types, respectively.
Currently, the highest HPV type number awarded is HPV 216 (www.hpvcenter.se). Because 5 previously awarded HPV types have been withdrawn there are as of today (2017-04-27) 211 different HPV types.