Bovine leukemia virus non-productive infection of human mammary epithelial cells (MCF10A)

Abstract

Bovine leukemia virus (BLV) is a retrovirus that causes lymphosarcoma in cattle. Some researchers suggestthat BLV could be related to breast cancer development, however, evidence that the virus can infect thehuman counterpart is lacking. For that reason, the objective of this study was to infect in vitro a humanmammary epithelial cell line (MCF10A) with BLV. The results suggest that the infection is non-productive,since only a fragment of the viral gene pol was detected in the cellular DNA. These results are consistentwith previous studies, where fragments of different BLV genes were found in human mammary tissue.Future studies should investigate whether this non-productive infection can be associated with human breastcancer.