Biochemical approach to bovine leukemia.

Many bovine leukemic lymphocytes produce virus particles when kept in survival cultures in Eagle's Minimum Essential Medium supplemented with 20 percent of inactivated fetal calf serum. Virus particles equilibrate at a density of 1.16 g/ml in sucrose gradients and at a density of 1.12 g/ml in metrizamide gradients. Simultaneous detection tests show that a high molecular weight RNA-reverse transcriptase complex exists in these viruses. Hybridizations between total RNA from bovine leukemic lymphocytes and C-DNA prepared in various known RNA oncogenic viruses show that the virus associated with bovine leukosis is unrelated to RLV, SSV-1, MSV-Ki, FSV-Ga and FLV-Ri.