Methods for molecularly characterizing cervical cell samples

A method of determining the methylation level of a plurality of CpG sites of a nucleic acid molecule obtained from a cell of a cervical cell sample, wherein said cell has been infected with a Human papillomavirus having a genotype selected from the group consisting of:

• 114, 91, 90, 84, 83, 81, 72, 71, 61, 54, 43, 42, 11, 6, 97, 85, 82, 73, 70, 69, 67, 66, 53, 34, 30, 26, a9, 68, 59, 58, 56, 52, 51, 45, 39, 35, 33, 31, 18, and 16 and said nucleic acid molecule has a sequence identity of at least 95% to SEQ ID NO:
• 3, which comprises
• a) converting unmethylated cytosine residues of the nucleic acid molecule to uracil by contacting the nucleic acid molecule with bisulfite to obtain a bisulfite converted nucleic acid molecule;
• b) subjecting the bisulfite converted nucleic acid molecule to polymerase chain reaction amplification using a set of primers to obtain amplified nucleic acid molecules;
• and
• c) performing an assay to determine the methylation level of each CpG site in the plurality,
• wherein the plurality of CpG sites consist of CpG 1, CpG 2, CpG 3, CpG 4, and CpG 5 of SEQ ID NO:
• 3.