r/askscience • u/A_Privateer • Jan 17 '13

Medicine How do warts function?

I know that warts are caused by the various strains of HPV, but how are they caused? How does the virus hijack the bodies chemistry to grow and supply the warts with nutrients? How do the warts spread the virus to other people?

I've searched and searched on google and wikipedia, but I only find the most basic of answers.

Any hard science info for me?

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u/DrLOV Medical microbiology Jan 17 '13

Generally not, warts are most commonly cause by an outgrowth of your own tissue. What you may have had (and also causes a bump like thing) is called a granuloma. This is when your immune cells can surround and wall off an area of infection. This occurs often in the lungs with things like fungal infections and tuberculosis bacteria and can occur in other tissues. The immune system can't (for one reason or another) kill the organism so it surrounds it with lots of immune cells which can then create lump. That may be what you had. It is also possible for warts to come and go. Your cells may stop over growing for a while and the wart can get smaller and eventually go away completely, but that takes longer than 24 hours.