Virus expression in different tissues of normal and tumor-bearing mice inoculated with a murine leukemia virus

Evolution of virus expression in different lymphoid organs as well as in solid syngeneic tumors of mice inoculated with an MuLV was studied with the aid of in vitro XC co-culture technique. When normal adult mice of strain XLII were inoculated intraperitoneally with a cultured Rauscher virus (RC), the virus could be detected, 10 days after inoculation, only in bone marrow in small amounts and thereafter no virus could be found in any of the organs tested, including bone marrow, spleen, thymus, lymph node and kidney. However, when age- and sex-matched parallel mice bearing syngeneic subcutaneous non-viral tumors were inoculated similarly with the RC virus, the virus could be detected abundantly not only in bone marrow and spleen but also in tumors during the first 3 weeks and even 6 weeks after virus inoculation. Transitional decrease or disappearance of the virus was observed around the 25th-31st day in organs and tumors of the inoculated mice. When the tumor mass was removed from these mice by surgery, the virus disappeared rapidly and definitely from all the organs tested. The virus recovered from in vitro explanted and cultured tumors, taken from mice inoculated with the virus, induced typical lymphoid leukemia in BALB/c mice inoculated as newborns. However, from certain aspects (hypertrophy of the thymus and lymph nodes), this virus was different from the original RC virus.