Isolation of type C virions from a normal human fibroblast strain.

Type C virions were spontaneously released from cultures of a diploid human cell strain. The varions have properties of known type C RNA tumor viruses and share antigenic determinants with the major interspecies-specific antigen (p30) of simian sarcoma virus. Antiserum to reverse transcriptase of gibbon ape leukemia virus inhibits the reverse transcriptase of the putative human virions and that of simian sarcoma virus, but has no effect on the corresponding enzymes of avian or murine RNA tumor viruses.