Triage of human papillomavirus infected women by methylation analysis in first-void urine
Van Keer et al.
The finding, in our words
Host cell DNA methylation levels in first-void urine increased with disease severity among HR-HPV positive women, and GHSR and LHX8 methylation discriminated CIN2+ with AUCs of 0.80 and 0.76, respectively, supporting decentralised urine-based triage to improve cervical screening uptake.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
DNA methylation markers in first-void urine effectively detect high-grade cervical lesions in HPV-positive women, with results similar to clinician-collected samples in those over 30. This enables reliable cervical cancer screening using self-collected urine, reducing the need for invasive follow-up procedures in decentralised settings.
The study found that testing for ASCL1/LHX8 DNA methylation in at-home collected first-void urine can detect most cervical cancers and high-grade precancers, supporting a fully molecular screening pathway without a clinical visit.
Adding polyethylene glycol to first-void urine before centrifugation markedly improved cell-free DNA recovery in the pellet, whereas low-speed centrifugation alone removed cellular DNA while keeping cell-free DNA in the supernatant. Pseudovirions pelleted reliably under all conditions, but the study revealed substantial variation between self-collected samples, highlighting the need for standardised protocols in decentralised HPV screening programmes.
In first-void urine collected with Colli-Pee, the extraction method influenced HPV and human DNA yield more than the collected volume did: standardising processing matters at least as much as standardising volume.
First-void urine collected via Colli-Pee found no HPV DNA in ocular swabs and no genital-ocular association, refuting autoinoculation in pterygium. Tear VEGF was elevated in pterygium while IL-6, IL-18 and VEGF were raised in dry eye, demonstrating condition-specific cytokine patterns.