The isolation and characterization of the Blym-1 transforming gene

There are a number of similarities between chicken bursal lymphomas and human Burkitt's lymphomas. Both lymphomas are associated with viral infection, by LLV in bursal lymphomas and Epstein-Barr virus in Burkitt's lymphoma. Avian lymphoid leukosis virus integration is associated with enhanced c-myc expression, while the role EBV plays in tumorigenesis remains unclear. In Burkitt's lymphoma, however, c-myc activation does occur as a result of specific chromosomal translocations involving the human c-myc locus. Furthermore, the activated transforming genes detected by transfection of both bursal lymphoma and Burkitt's lymphoma DNAs are homologous members of the Blym family of genes. These similarities between chicken and human lymphomas provide evidence that viral involvement and oncogene activation are significant in tumor development and suggest they are involved in the multi-step progression to the neoplastic phenotype. The function of the Blym genes remains to be determined. Although the chicken and human Blym genes are only distantly related, they have maintained their homology to the amino-terminal regions of transferrins. This fact may reflect some functional constraint on the evolution of these genes. It is therefore possible that transforming genes such as Blym may function via a transferrin-related mechanism.