Host endocrine status mediates oncogenesis: leukemia virus-induced carcinomas and reticulum cell sarcomas in acyclic...

A highly selective leukemogenic virus obtained from thymic lymphosarcomas (LS) of C57BL/6 mice was inoculated intraperitoneally into normal or gonadectomized C57BL/6 male mice and into normal or masculinized, acyclic, Charles River (CR) outbred female mice. This virus induced early onset of LS in both normal and gonadectomized C57BL/6 mice. The same virus induced a relatively late onset of many mammary adenocarcinomas in the normal CR mice and ovary adenocarcinomas and systemic neoplasms (LS and reticulum cell neoplasms) in the acyclic females. Topography, histopathology and the average latent period of the tumors were completely different between the normal and the acyclic females. This is consistent with the idea that a leukemia virus can induce tumors other than leukemia and that permanent alterations of the physiological hormonal cyclicity plays a major role in determining whether or on which target cells the ubiquitous virus will exert its carcinogenic action.