Bovine leukemia virus: an exogenous RNA oncogenic virus?
- PMID: 64382
- DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-87524-3_37
Bovine leukemia virus: an exogenous RNA oncogenic virus?
Abstract
Short term cultures of bovine leukemic lymphocytes release virus particles with biochemical properties of RNA oncogenic viruses. These particles, tentatively called Bovine Leukemia Virus (BLV) have a high molecular weight-reverse transcriptase complex and a density averaging 1.155 g/ml in sucrose solutions. Molecular hybridizations between BLV-3H cDNA and several viral RNAs show that BLV is not related to Mason-Pfizer Monkey Virus (MPMV) Simian Sarcoma Associated Virus (SSV-1) Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV) or Avian Myeloblastosis Virus (AMV). Rauscher Leukemia Virus (RLV) exhibits a slight but reproducible relatednesse to BLV. The high preference of BLV reverse transcriptase for Mg++ as the divalent cation suggests that BLV might be an atypical mammalian leukemogenic type C virus. Hybridization studies using BLV 3H cDNA as a probe suggest that the DNA of bovine leukemic cells contains viral sequences that cannot be detected in normal bovine DNA.