Vývoj a otestování jednoduchého rychlého testu vhodného pro detekci HPV virů

This diploma thesis deals with the detection of the human papillomaviruses (HPV). HPV are small viruses which infect skin and mucous membrane epithelium. According to their transformation potential, they are divided into viruses with a low risk of tumorigenesis and viruses with a high risk of tumorigenesis. The low-risk HPV are responsible for benign tumours such as papules appearing in the place of infection. The high-risk HPV infect predominantly the transformation zone of the cervical epithelium. Their persistence leads to changes in the epithelium followed by the development of precancerous lesions and ultimately to the origin of the cervical carcinoma. Despite the already established preventive screening programmes, the cervical cancer is one of the most frequent tumour diseases among women. Thus the development of the new methods enabling quick and cheaper HPV detection is very desirable. Based on these preferences, an electrochemical method appears to be a good alternative for HPV detection. The aim of this thesis to develop an electrochemical test consisted in design of HPV specific probes followed by several optimization steps to improve electrochemical analysis. After reaching the efficient sensibility and specifity of this method, the electrochemical test was validated using cervical cancer cell lines and also on clinical samples from the brush smear. Promising results obtained in this study confirm the adequacy of the method for HPV detection.