# Development of a mouse model to test HPV Antiviral compounds

> **NIH NIH R21** · INDIANA UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS · 2024 · $237,750

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 Papillomaviruses (PV) cause slowly proliferating epithelial tumors called warts or papillomas. These are
very common infections of skin and the cervical, genital, anal, and oral mucosa. Infections with a subset of
human and several animal PVs can progress to cervical, anogenital, and oropharyngeal malignancies.
Because human PV infections are believed to be species specific, a fully representative model of HPV
pathogenesis is not available in a common laboratoryanimal.
 There is no specifically antiviral therapy for early-stage HPV infection and for HPV-associated cancers.
Currently, most treatments involve physical destruction or surgical removal of the infected and nearby
tissues. In low resource countries, the lack of testing and scarce availability of surgical procedures results in
very high prevalence of HPV-induced cancers. There is a critical unmet need for an in vivo system to test
novel therapeutics aimed at eliminating HPV infection. A tractable mouse model to test antiviral agents
specifically designed to interrupt HPV protein activities would have a major impact on pre-clinical drug
development.
 The experiments proposed in this R21 grant will investigate the expression and maintenance of HPV-16
genomes in murine cell culture and in live mice. Several forms of HPV-16 genomes will be tested, including
the creation of a mouse papillomavirus genome in which the native E6 and E7 genes are replaced by HPV-
16 E6 and E7. These oncoproteins are necessary for both viral genome replication and always expressed in
HPV-associated malignancies and are therefore excellent targets for antiviral targeting. If HPV-16 is
successfully propagated and the infection persists in mice, these murine models would be an important
advance before clinical testing in human. Furthermore, this would also serve as a useful model to investigate
the functions of HPV oncoproteins in genome maintenance and neoplastic progression. An antiviral treatment
that cures early and persistent HPV-16 infections would reduce the risk and burden of progression to cancer
that afflicts millions of people throughout the world.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10735891
- **Project number:** 5R21AI174247-02
- **Recipient organization:** INDIANA UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS
- **Principal Investigator:** ELLIOT J. ANDROPHY
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $237,750
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-11-07 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10735891

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10735891, Development of a mouse model to test HPV Antiviral compounds (5R21AI174247-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10735891. Licensed CC0.

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