Presence of chicken tumour virus in the sarcoma of the adult rat inoculated after birth with Rous sarcoma tissue.

Abstract

THE heterotransplantation of Rous sarcoma to new-born rats results in lethal haemorrhagic disease occurring in these animals1–3. Svet-Moldavsky2 succeeded in determining the infectious virus in haemorrhagic cysts, while Zilber and Kryukova1 and Kryukova4 had negative results. In our experiments, the virus was not found in every case, but we observed it in some of the animals3,5. Svet-Moldavsky6 has also shown that Rous virus can induce the formation of rat sarcomas which do not contain the virus. On the basis of our material we came to a similar conclusion. In 2 out of 87 young rats inoculated 1–7 days after birth with a single dose of 0.3 ml. of cut fresh Rous sarcoma tissue diluted with physiological saline to make a 50 per cent suspension, large sarcomas were found in thigh muscle tissue in addition to haemorrhagic cysts occurring in other parts of the body. The first case was observed 5 months and the second one 7 months following inoculation of Rous sarcoma; the cyst was localized in the axillary region, whereas the sarcoma grew in the thigh muscle of the hind leg.