Mouse leukemia virus: "spontaneous" release by mouse embryo cells after long-term in vitro cultivation.

BALB/c mouse embryo cells maintained in tissue culture on a schedule of rapid transfer at high cell density develop into tumorigenic lines that have lost contact inhibition of cell division. After several months in culture, certain of these lines begin to release mouse leukemia virus. This virus has properties indistinguishable from those of virus found in adult BALB/c mice. The evidence presented here demonstrates that the murine leukemia virus genome must be present in the original embryo cultures. The possibility that the genetic information for making murine leukemia virus is present in a repressed form in every mouse embryo cell is discussed.