Virus particles and murine leukemia virus complement-fixing antigen in neoplastic and nonneoplastic cell lines.

Twenty-seven lines of murine tissue cultures derived from 12 different cell pools and grown on various media were examined with the electron microscope for morphologically detectable virus particles. They were also tested for complement-fixing mouse leukemia virus antigens and for recoverable virus. A 100-percent correlation between results obtained by these two methods is reported. An additional 19 lines from 8 different cell pools were examined for either virus particles or complement-fixing antigens. All lines were assayed for neoplastic transformation. Seven cell pools gave rise to lines showing evidence of contamination with leukemia virus. Since most of these lines had also undergone "spontaneous" neoplastic transformation in vitro, this virus cannot be excluded as a possible cause of the neoplastic change, or of influencing it. The remaining cell pools gave rise to lines with no evidence of contamination with leukemia virus;but most of these lines also underwent similar transformation. These results suggest that "spontaneous" neoplastic transformation can occur in the absence of detectable mouse leukemia virus.