Design of two RTQPCRs for XMRV-like murine leukemia viruses. © program The variation in MLV gag genes was studied by blasting the nr portion of GenBank with gag of XMRV VP62. BLASTN retrieved 109 MLV gag sequences. The result was treated with the variation analysis program ConSort (Blomberg et al, unpublished) (fig S1 A and B). The selected portion of gag corresponded approximately to the major...

Retroviruses are well known pathogens of mammals, birds and fish. Their potential to induce cancer in chickens was already described almost 100 years ago and murine retroviruses have been a subject of study for 50 years. The first human retroviruses, HTLV and HIV, were discovered more than 30 years ago, surprising researchers and physicians by the profound differences in the diseases they cause...

A monoclonal antibody prepared against the Rauscher virus envelope glycoprotein with a molecular weight of 70,000 targeted to neoplastic cells and cured the Rauscher leukemia virus-induced erythroleukemia in BALB/c mice. This antibody, 103A, specifically reacted with the Rauscher and Friend erythroleukemia viruses and erythroleukemic cells but did not react with other murine ecotropic or xenotr...

A number of lines of evidence indicate that the genetic determinants of the xenotropic mouse leukemia viruses (MuLV) 1 are inherited as chromosomal genes in mice. Sequences homologous to the complete viral genome have been identified in the cellular DNA of all laboratory mouse strains as well as in wild house mice (1). An MuLV gpT0 found in serum of all mouse strains shows a tryptic digest patt...

To the Editor: Xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus (XMRV) is a recently described human retrovirus that has been associated with prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) (1,2). XMRV is similar to a classic murine endogenous leukemia retrovirus, murine leukemia virus (MLV), which infects strains of mice that do not express the specifi c viral receptor. XMRV is genetically cl...