Spontaneous and induced leukemias of myeloid origin in recombinant inbred BXH mice

BXH-2 recombinant inbred (RI) mice produce high titers of B-ecotropic murine leukemia virus beginning early in life and have a high incidence of non-T-cell leukemias that occur before 1 year of age. The leukemias that develop are in some cases associated with hind limb paralysis. In addition, a dualtropic mink cell focus-forming virus has been isolated from leukemic cells of BXH-2 mice. Immunological and cytochemical characterization of the BXH-2 leukemias showed that they are of the myeloid lineage. To assess the oncogenicity of the BXH-2 viruses, newborn mice of several BXH RI strains were inoculated at birth with biologically cloned B-ecotropic or mink cell focus-forming murine leukemia virus. These studies demonstrated that the B-ecotropic virus can induce myeloid leukemias in other BXH RI strains, whereas the dualtropic mink cell focus-forming isolates were nononcogenic in the strains tested. DNA-DNA reassociation analysis indicated that the organotropism of the B-ecotropic murine leukemia virus is confined to lymphoid tissues. Southern analysis of tumor DNAs showed that there was amplification of ecotropic virus-specific sequences in BXH-2 myeloid tumors and in all leukemias induced in other BXH RI strains by inoculation of the BXH-2 B-ecotropic virus. Although B-ecotropic virus is expressed in central nervous tissues of paralyzed BXH-2 mice, we were unable to induce the disorder in several BXH RI strains inoculated intracranially at birth with either the B-ecotropic or dualtropic virus. These results suggest that the paralysis that occurs in BXH-2 mice is due to the infiltration of leukemic cells into the central nervous system.