Studies on the prevalence of endogenous type C virus RD 114 in cats.

Abstract

SummaryVirus-free cultures of diverse cat cells derived from normal or tumor tissues contained covert RD 114-like viruses inducible with 5-iododeoxyuridine (IdU). Infectious virus was isolated from each of 16 cat cell cultures derived from nine cats, which included six cultures of diverge, normal embryonic tissues from six cats, cultures of tumor (osteosarcoma) of two adult cats, one subline CRFK of Crandell cat cell line, and seven single cell clones we prepared from subline C-C of the same Crandell cat cell line.RD 114 virus as well as feline leukemia virus (FeLV) were recovered from the spleen and bone marrow of cat XC 114B through which McAllister et al. (1) passed RD cells immediately prior to the original discovery of the RD 114 virus. RD 114-like virus was also isolated from a thymus of a cat fetus. Many cat lymphosarcoma specimens contained FeLV but none contained infectious RD 114.These studies provide conclusive evidence of the original mode of infection of RD cells with RD 114 and suggest the w...