This corroborates previous studies indicating that: (a) mitophagy is activated in cells harbouring BPV infection as p62 is selectively degraded by autophagy [35]; (b) p62 may be essential for parkin-mediated mitophagy in urothelial cells of cattle spontaneously infected by BPV, similar to that seen in cultured cells [30]. This evidence concerns the gene SQSTM1 and infection.