Bovine lymphosarcoma: development of a radioimmunologic technique for detection of the etiologic agent

A highly sensitive and specific radioimmunoassay has been developed for the major structural protein of an oncornavirus etiologically associated with bovine lymphosarcoma. This test can be used to identify cattle which have been exposed to the bovine leukemia virus and may thus develop or transmit the disease. Analysis of randomly obtained serums indicates that infection that infection with this virus is widespread among cattle.

Bovine leukemia virus: an exogenous RNA oncogenic virus

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 RNA-reverse transcriptase complex and a density of 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, simian sarcoma associated virus, feline leukemia virus, or avian myeloblastosis virus. These results were confirmed by hybridization between BLV 70S RNA and [3H]cDNA synthesized in the various viruses tested. The high preference of BLV reverse transciptase for Mg++ as the divalent cation suggests that BLV might be an atypical mammalian leukemogenic "type C" virus. DNA-DNA hybridization studies using BLV [3H]cDNA as a probe strongly suggest that the DNA of bovine leukemic cells contains viral sequences that cannot be detected in normal bovine DNA.

Development of an in vitro infectivity assay for the C-type bovine leukemia virus

The ability of the bovine C-type leukemia virus to induce syncytia formation in monolayer cell cultures has been used to develop a specific and simple infectivity assay for the virus. Using bovine embryonic spleen cells or human diploid embryonic lung cells as indicator cells, the results of the assay can be evaluated in 4 to 6 or 6 to 8 days, respectively. Pretreatment of the indicator cells with DEAE-dextran greatly increases the sensitivity of the assay. The assay is quantitative and can be applied as a direct method for the identification of bovine C-type leukemia virus-infected animals; it also provides a simple, and sensitive procedure for the detection and titration of virus-neutralizing antibodies.

Biochemical approach to bovine leukemia

Many bovine leukemic lymphocytes produce virus particles when kept in survival cultures in Eagle's Minimum Essential Medium supplemented with 20 percent of inactivated fetal calf serum. Virus particles equilibrate at a density of 1.16 g/ml in sucrose gradients and at a density of 1.12 g/ml in metrizamide gradients. Simultaneous detection tests show that a high molecular weight RNA-reverse transcriptase complex exists in these viruses. Hybridizations between total RNA from bovine leukemic lymphocytes and C-DNA prepared in various known RNA oncogenic viruses show that the virus associated with bovine leukosis is unrelated to RLV, SSV-1, MSV-Ki, FSV-Ga and FLV-Ri.