Myeloproliferative Sarcoma Virus stimulates pluripotent hematopoietic stem cells and provokes tumoral transformation of the hematopoietic microenvironment in vitro.

The Myeloproliferative Sarcoma Virus (MPSV) induces an increase in the number and concentration of pluripotent stem cells in long-term murine bone marrow cultures. This is followed by an increased number of precursor cells of the granulocyte and macrophage lines (GM-CFC). This increase is comparable to that observed in DBA/2 mouse spleens in vivo two to three weeks after viral infection. Proliferation of CFUs and GM-CFC decreases five weeks after infection with MPSV, in parallel to the gradual decline of reverse transcriptase activity in the culture medium. GM-CFC which can proliferate in the absence of added colony stimulating factor (CSF) were detected at week 6 post MPSV infection. Adherent tumor cells were observed nine weeks after infection. These fibroblast type cells gave rise to a permanent line which produced a CSF-like activity. Our results show that MPSV causes the tumoral transformation of fibroblast-like cells of the bone-marrow hematopoietic microenvironment. In addition, MPSV also strongly stimulates the proliferation of hematopoietic stem cells. MPSV is, until now, the first murine retrovirus which exhibits such properties.