Fig. 1.

Clinical lesion sampling and quantification of HPV genome load from samples. (a) Exfoliating cells and squames were collected from the surface of clinically-diagnosed HPV lesions using five passes of a sterile emery paper (see Supplemental Information). Image made in collaboration with BioRender. (b) DNA was isolated from exfoliated cells from atop clinically-diagnosed papillomas and subject to genotyping. Samples positive for HPV11, HPV16 and/or HPV31 were assessed for genotype specific viral DNA load in triplicate by qPCR. Also shown are the estimated sum levels of genome copies per sample for non-HPV11 low risk types (types 6, 43, 44, 54, 61, 70) or non-HPV16/31 high-risk types, (types 33, 35, 39, 53, 56, 59, 68). Bars represent the mean values of total VGE from each sample; mean values and 95% CI are shown. Details of cases are shown in Table 1.