The Abelson murine leukemia virus (Ab-MLV or A-MuLV) is a

retrovirus A retrovirus is a type of virus that inserts a DNA copy of its RNA genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades, thus changing the genome of that cell. Once inside the host cell's cytoplasm, the virus uses its own reverse transcriptase ...

(Class VI) used to induce

malignant transformation Malignant transformation is the process by which cells acquire the properties of cancer. This may occur as a primary process in normal tissue, or secondarily as ''malignant degeneration'' of a previously existing benign tumor. Causes There are ...

murine The Old World rats and mice, part of the subfamily Murinae in the family Muridae, comprise at least 519 species. Members of this subfamily are called murines. In terms of species richness, this subfamily is larger than all mammal families excep ...

lymphoid The lymphatic system, or lymphoid system, is an organ system in vertebrates that is part of the immune system, and complementary to the circulatory system. It consists of a large network of lymphatic vessels, lymph nodes, lymphatic or lymphoid o ...

cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...

s. As a retrovirus, it has a single-stranded, positive sense

RNA Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydra ...

genome which replicates via a DNA intermediate mediated by a

reverse transcriptase A reverse transcriptase (RT) is an enzyme used to generate complementary DNA (cDNA) from an RNA template, a process termed reverse transcription. Reverse transcriptases are used by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B to replicate their genomes, ...

. The Abelson murine leukemia virus is named for the American pediatrician Herbert T. Abelson, who together with Louise S Rabstein, first described and isolated it. A-MuLV causes a rapidly progressive

lymphosarcoma Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). In current usage the name usually refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include enlar ...

known as Abelson disease in mice, which is a type of

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

that does not involve the

thymus The thymus is a specialized primary lymphoid organ of the immune system. Within the thymus, thymus cell lymphocytes or ''T cells'' mature. T cells are critical to the adaptive immune system, where the body adapts to specific foreign invaders. ...

. However, this is only possible when the host cell is co-infected with a helper virus which provides functions it needs to be able to replicate which it does not code for in its own genome such as a reverse transcriptase and some major structural proteins. As such, A-MuLV can be described as a dependovirus. A highly efficient helper virus commonly used when growing A-MuLV ''in vitro'' is Moloney murine leukemia virus (M-MuLV). It causes leukemia directly by interfering with the normal growth and differentiation processes of

lymphocytes A lymphocyte is a type of white blood cell (leukocyte) in the immune system of most vertebrates. Lymphocytes include natural killer cells (which function in cell-mediated, cytotoxic innate immunity), T cells (for cell-mediated, cytotoxic adap ...

. It can infect B-cells which was shown by the fact that some tumor cells can be seen to have

immunoglobulins An antibody (Ab), also known as an immunoglobulin (Ig), is a large, Y-shaped protein used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects such as pathogenic bacteria and viruses. The antibody recognizes a unique molecule of the ...

(Ig) on their surface although most tumor cells do not have characteristic receptors on their surface indicating that they are undifferentiated cells. ''In vitro'' studies have shown that lymphocyte infection produces tumor cell populations comprising three types of cells: stable productive cells, non-productive cells and cells which produced defective virus particles which are not infective.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Abelson Murine Leukemia Virus Gammaretroviruses Rodent diseases Animal viral diseases