Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIM: Cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) develop spontaneous infection of Papillomavirus (PV); thus, potentially beneficial for modeling human PV (HPV) infection study. Contrary to human origin, infection in cynomolgus monkeys does not always show evident clinical symptoms of cervical cancer. The absence of cervical cancer clinical symptoms leads us to investigate the molecular mechanism of the HPV infection in cynomolgus monkeys. This study aimed to investigate the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) expression levels of KI67 and P53 genes, majorly known as biomarker oncogenesis of PV infection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique was used with MY11/MY09 primer to screen PV in cynomolgus monkey, further grouped as positive-PV and negative-PV infection groups. Real-time quantitative PCR was also applied to quantify the mRNA expression levels of KI67 and P53 genes in animals. RESULTS: Increased expression of mRNA level of KI67 genes was significantly higher in Positive- PV group than negative-PV group. In contrast, the P53 mRNA expression level increased markedly higher in the negative-PV group than in the positive-PV group. CONCLUSION: Our study describes the potential of cynomolgus monkeys as a spontaneous oncogenesis model of PV infection-type. However, we used a limited number of cancer genetic markers. So, further study of other genetic markers is required to prove that cervical cancer could be developed naturally in cynomolgus monkeys.