To date, the vast majority of known virus-encoded microRNAs (miRNAs) are derived from polymerase II transcripts encoded by DNA viruses. A recent demonstration that the bovine leukemia virus, a retrovirus, uses RNA polymerase III to directly transcribe the pre-miRNA hairpins to generate viral miRNAs further supports the common notion that the canonical pathway of miRNA biogenesis does not exist ...

Among the six envelope subgroups of avian leukosis virus (ALV) that infect chickens, subgroups A (ALV-A) and J (ALV-J) are the most pathogenic and widespread among commercial chicken populations. While ALV-A is predominantly associated with lymphoid leukosis (LL) and less frequently with erythroblastosis (EB), ALV-J mainly induces tumours of the myeloid lineage. In order to examine the basis fo...

D espite the attention being paid to avian influenza and its potential to cause a pandemic among humans, the threat of avian diseases extends well beyond the influenza virus. Of particular interest to poultry producers are foodborne infectious bacteria such as Salmonella and Campylobacter spp., as well as several viruses, including those responsible for causing Exotic Newcastle Disease, avian l...

Gross lesions characterized by swollen livers and spleens accompanied by diffuse white miliary spots, which resembled those of Marek's disease, were detected in two flocks of local meat-type chickens at a Japanese poultry processing plant in June and August 2010. The microscopic examinations revealed proliferative foci consisting of spindle or polymorphic cells in the interstitium of livers, sp...

Salmonella typhimurium was invariably isolated from our J strain murine leukosis. Immunization of D103 mice with either inactivated Salmonella typhimurium or the cell-free extract of leukosis inhibited the transplantation of leukosis. The adoptive immunization of D103 mice with spleen cells of Strong A mice immunized with either Salmonella or the cell-free extract of leukosis inhibited the tran...

The relation between diet, lifestyle, and acute myeloid leukemia was assessed in a US cohort of 491,163 persons from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study (1995-2003). A total of 338 incident cases of acute myeloid leukemia were ascertained. Multivariate Cox models were utilized to estimate hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Compared with those for never smokers, hazard ratios were 1.29 (...

Avian leukosis virus subgroup J (ALV-J), an exogenous avian retrovirus, is thought to have evolved by recombination with the highly identical env gene of the endogenous avian retrovirus EAV-HP. Embryonic expression of EAV-HP env has been suggested to be associated with the induction of immunological tolerance, a feature observed in a significant proportion of meat-type chickens infected with AL...

There are severe cattle-specific viral (foot and mouth, vesicular stomatitis, rinderpest, rift valley fever, malignant catarrhal lumpy skin, rabies, bovine leukosis, diarrhea, spongiform encephalopathy), bacterial (tuberculosis, black quarter, botulism, oedema, leptospirosis, brucellosis, anthrax, hemogenic septicemia, actinomycosis, actinobacillosis, mastitis, metritis), parasitic (lungworm, f...