If the source of retroviral infection is not from the prostate cancer patient, but introduced by passage through animals or laboratory contamination, then the presence of replication competent retroviruses in commonly used prostate cancer cell lines for research could potentially have confounding effects on experimental outcomes.
These results suggest that if CWR22Rv1 cells are routinely cultured in a typical biomedical research laboratory setting (e.g. using standard Class II biosafety cabinets and procedures for cell culture in which two different cell lines are never present under the hood at the same time), that XMRV can infect and contaminate other cell lines.