OBJECTIVES To compare the prevalence of antibodies against Marek's disease herpes virus (MDV) and against avian leukosis viruses type C (ALV) in groups of workers exposed to poultry and in unexposed groups. METHODS Antibodies directed against avian viral proteins were detected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay in 549 subjects. Exposure to chickens was high in two subgroups: farmers on inte...

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is overexpressed in most high-grade human gliomas, implying that it is involved in the pathogenesis of these tumors. To assess the biological effect of inappropriate production of bFGF in normal astrocytes, we developed a system for glia-specific gene transfer in transgenic mice. A transgene encoding the receptor for subgroup A avian leukosis virus and cont...

We have tested whether avian leukosis viruses (ALVs) can use tRNAs other than tRNATrp to initiate reverse transcription. The primer binding site (PBS) of a wild-type ALV provirus, which is complementary to the 3' end of tRNA(Trp), was replaced with sequences homologous to the 3' ends of six different chicken tRNAs (tRN(APro), tRNA(Lys), tRNA(Met), tRNA(Ile), tRNA(Phe), and tRNA(Ser)). Transfect...

Avian leukosis virus (ALV) is a simple retrovirus that can induce B-cell lymphoma in chicken(s) and other birds by insertional mutagenesis. The promoter region of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) has been identified as an important integration site for tumorigenesis. Tumors with TERT promoter integrations are associated with increased TERT expression. The mechanism of this activation is ...

Standard avian myeloblastosis virus (AMV), BAI strain A, causes myeloblastosis, osteopetrosis, lymphoid leukosis, and nephroblastoma in chickens. In this investigation, several leu kosis viruses of subgroups A and B were isolated (rom standard AMV and characterized. A subgroup A virus derived from an AMV-induced lymphoma of a Japanese quail was isolated, and it induced a high incidence of osteo...

DNA-RNA hybridization experiments have demonstrated the widespread presence in chickens of DNA complementary to the RNA of avian myeloblastosis virus. All apparently normal chicken embryos, or adult chickens that were tested, contained viral DNA in amounts ranging from 1.7 to 4.6 viral genome equivalents per cell. Embryos that were negative or positive for the group-specific antigen of avian le...