Department of General Surgery, University of Vermont Medical Center, Burlington, VT, USA.
Department of Surgery, Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, 89 Beaumont Ave., B227, Burlington, VT, 05405, USA.
Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2023 Nov;202(2):325-334. doi: 10.1007/s10549-023-07061-4. Epub 2023 Jul 30.
The bovine leukemia virus (BLV) is a deltaretrovirus that causes malignant lymphoma and lymphosarcomas in cattle globally and has high prevalence among large scale U.S. dairy herds. Associations between presence of BLV DNA in human mammary tissue and human breast cancer incidence have been reported. We sought to estimate the prevalence of BLV DNA in breast cancer tissue samples in a rural state with an active dairy industry.
We purified genomic DNA from 56 fresh-frozen breast cancer tissue samples (51 tumor samples, 5 samples representing adjacent normal breast tissue) banked between 2016 and 2019. Using nested PCR assays, multiple BLV tax sequence primers and primers for the long terminal repeat (LTR) were used to detect BLV DNA in tissue samples and known positive control samples, including the permanently infected fetal lamb kidney cell line (FLK-BLV) and blood from BLV positive cattle.
The median age of patients from which samples were obtained at the time of treatment was 60 (40-93) and all were female. Ninety percent of patients had invasive ductal carcinoma. The majority were poorly differentiated (60%). On PCR assay, none of the tumor samples tested positive for BLV DNA, despite having consistent signals in positive controls.
We did not find BLV DNA in fresh-frozen breast cancer tumors from patients presenting to a hospital in Vermont. Our findings suggest a low prevalence of BLV in our patient population and a need to reevaluate the association between BLV and human breast cancer.
牛白血病病毒（BLV）是一种δ逆转录病毒，可在全球范围内引起牛的恶性淋巴瘤和淋巴肉瘤，并且在美国大型奶牛群中的流行率很高。已经报道了人乳腺组织中存在 BLV DNA 与人乳腺癌发病率之间的关联。我们试图在一个拥有活跃奶牛业的农村州估计乳腺癌组织样本中 BLV DNA 的流行率。
我们从 2016 年至 2019 年期间储存的 56 个新鲜冷冻乳腺癌组织样本（51 个肿瘤样本，5 个代表相邻正常乳腺组织的样本）中纯化了基因组 DNA。使用巢式 PCR 检测，使用多个 BLV tax 序列引物和长末端重复（LTR）引物检测组织样本和已知阳性对照样本中的 BLV DNA，包括永久性感染的胎羊肾细胞系（FLK-BLV）和 BLV 阳性牛的血液。
治疗时获得样本的患者的中位年龄为 60（40-93）岁，均为女性。90%的患者患有浸润性导管癌。大多数分化不良（60%）。在 PCR 检测中，尽管阳性对照中有一致的信号，但没有一个肿瘤样本检测到 BLV DNA 阳性。
我们未在佛蒙特州一家医院就诊的乳腺癌患者的新鲜冷冻肿瘤中发现 BLV DNA。我们的研究结果表明，BLV 在我们的患者人群中的流行率较低，需要重新评估 BLV 与人类乳腺癌之间的关联。
