PURPOSE: The research of HPV has been severely hampered by the inability to propagate HPVs in culture, particularly those of the mucosotrophic types which produce few virions in vivo. In order to study the regulation of HPV-18 expression in vivo, we constructed transgenic mice and caused cervical neoplasia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We investigated whether tetradecanoyl phorbol acetate (TPA) increase the transcriptional activity of the URR in the C33A cervical carcinoma cells or not. And we asked whether chronic exposure of female HPV-18 URR E6/E7 transgenic mice to TPA could render the reproductive tract squamous epithelium permissive for HPV neoplasia. RESULTS: It was confirmed by RT-PCR that transgene was specifically expressed in epithelial tissues. TPAupregulated the transcriptional activity of the URR in the C33A cervical carcinoma cells. There were diffuse changes on the squamous epithelium in the cervix of the transgenic mice at fifth month following TPA treatment. CONCLUSION: We established the transgenic mice model which have the ability to reproduce the development of cervical dysplasias. Moreover this animal model will allow preclinical testing of compounds designed to interfere with the actions of the HPV oncogenes or other critical aspects of the cancer phenotype.
Animals ; Cervix Uteri ; Epithelium ; Female ; Human papillomavirus 18 ; Humans ; Mice ; Mice, Transgenic* ; Models, Animal ; Oncogenes ; Phenotype ; Transgenes ; Virion

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma) was identified as a cell-intrinsic regulator of Th17 cell differentiation. Th17 cells have been associated with several autoimmune diseases, including experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and collagen-induced arthritis. In this study, we confirmed PPARgamma-mediated inhibition of Th17 cell differentiation and cytokine production at an early stage. Treatment with ciglitazone, a PPARgamma ligand, reduced both IL-1beta-mediated enhancement of Th17 differentiation and activation of Th17 cells after polarization. For Th17 cell differentiation, we found that ciglitazone-treated cells had a relatively low proliferative activity and produced a lower amount of cytokines, regardless of the presence of IL-1beta. The inhibitory activity of ciglitazone might be due to decrease of CCNB1 expression, which regulates the cell cycle in T cells. Hence, we postulate that a pharmaceutical PPARgamma activator might be a potent candidate for treatment of Th17-mediated autoimmune disease patients.
Arthritis, Experimental ; Autoimmune Diseases ; Cell Cycle ; Cell Proliferation ; Cytokines ; Encephalomyelitis, Autoimmune, Experimental ; Humans ; Inflammatory Bowel Diseases ; Interleukin-17 ; PPAR gamma* ; T-Lymphocytes ; Th17 Cells*