Bovine Leukaemia Virus onco-protein Tax antigen identification in human lymphomas tissue

Background: Bovine leukaemia virus (BLV) is the primary cause of enzootic bovine leukaemia which belongs to the HTLV/BLV group of oncogenic retroviruses including Human T-cell leukaemia virus types 1, 2, and 3 and simian T-lymphotropic virus. Due to daily consumption of milk, meat and other dairy by-products, a possible role in appearing human cancers can be assumed for BLV. Materials and Methods: In the present study, formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded and fresh human lymphomas tissues were used for detecting the BLV Tax genome and BLV Tax expression using nested-PCR and RT-nested-PCR. Results: Nested-PCR evaluation showed that 9 of 41 samples contained Tax region of BLV genome, which eight samples belonged to high grade diffuse large cell lymphoma (B-cell type). Also, the results of RT-nested-PCR showed the BLV Tax expression in 2 of 5 samples that both were high grade diffuse large cell lymphoma (B-cell type). Conclusion: These findings can explain the possible relation between BLV infection and the occurrence of some types of human lymphomas for the first time.