Friend murine leukemia helper viruses (F-MuLV) 57 and B3 were indistinguishable by genomic structural analyses with RNase T1-resistant oligonucleotide fingerprinting and by antigenic reactivity with a panel of 31 monoclonal antibodies directed against murine leukemia viruses. Nevertheless, F-MuLV 57 and B3 had strikingly different virulences. Approximately 2 months after inoculation, IRW and NF...

BACKGROUND Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) was recently discovered to be the first human gammaretrovirus that is associated with chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer (PC). Although a mechanism for XMRV carcinogenesis is yet to be established, this virus belongs to the family of gammaretroviruses well known for their ability to induce cancer in the infected hosts. S...

Although retroviruses from different genera form morphologically distinct capsids, we have proposed that all of these structures are composed of similar hexameric arrays of capsid (CA) protein subunits and that their distinct morphologies reflect different distributions of pentameric declinations that allow the structures to close. Consistent with this model, CA proteins from both HIV-1 and Rou...

1. Urisman A, Molinaro RJ, Fischer N, Plummer SJ, Casey G, Klein EA, et al. Identifi cation of a novel gammaretrovirus in prostate tumors of patients homozygous for R462Q RNASEL variant. PLoS Pathog. 2006;2:e25. DOI: 10.1371/journal. ppat.0020025 2. Lombardi VC, Ruscetti FW, Das GJ, Pfost MA, Hagen KS, Peterson DL, et al. Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of patients w...

In 2009, Lombardi et al. reported their startling finding that the gammaretrovirus xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related retrovirus (XMRV) is present in 67% of blood samples of patients suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), as opposed to only 3.7% of samples from healthy individuals. However, we and others could not confirm these results, using a nested PCR assay. An alternative to ...

BACKGROUND Autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impaired language, communication and social skills, as well as by repetitive and stereotypic patterns of behavior. Many autistic subjects display a dysregulation of the immune system which is compatible with an unresolved viral infection with prenatal onset, potentially due to vertical viral transmission. Recently, the xenotropic m...

Several recent articles have reported the presence of a gammaretrovirus, termed "XMRV" (xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus) in prostate cancers (PCa). If confirmed, this could have enormous implications for the detection, prevention, and treatment of PCa. However, other articles report failure to detect XMRV in PCa. We tested nearly 800 PCa samples, using a combination of real-time ...

Members of the gammaretroviruses--such as murine leukemia viruses (MLVs), most notably XMRV [xenotropic murine leukemia virus (X-MLV)-related virus--have been reported to be present in the blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). We evaluated blood samples from 61 patients with CFS from a single clinical practice, 43 of whom had previously been identified as XMRV-positive. Our ana...

BACKGROUND The recent report of gammaretroviruses of probable murine origin in humans, called xenotropic murine retrovirus related virus (XMRV) and human murine leukemia virus related virus (HMRV), necessitated a bioinformatic search for this virus in genomes of the mouse and other vertebrates, and by PCR in humans. RESULTS Three major groups of murine endogenous gammaretroviruses were identi...