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MLV caused leukaemia in kids!

bullybeef

Senior Member
Messages
488
Location
North West, England, UK
This is old news, but I believe it maybe highly relevant, and I couldn't find any previous mention of it.


See: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/06/030613074858.htm


Among the most widely used in gene therapy studies is the Moloney murine Leukemia Virus (MoMuLV), a mouse retrovirus that also can infect human cells. Physicians now believe that the children in the French study developed leukemia because the MoMuLV inserted therapeutic genes next to a gene known to promote blood cancer.


See: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/13/us/cancer-risk-exceeds-outlook-in-gene-therapy-studies-find.html


In the study being published today, in the journal Science, Dr. Shawn M. Burgess and colleagues at the National Human Genome Research Institute looked at 903 cases in which murine leukemia viruses, very similar to the type used in the French gene therapy, infected human cells in culture.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
But that cannot be! We have been told by the Almighty: the Men In White Coats, that cell lines and vaccines are safe!
They would never lie! They would never make a mistake!


:D


CLICK ME!

13580453.jpg
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
I didn't know that MoMuLV (an MLV) could infect human cells.
Interestingly, two of the XMRV variants (VP29 and VP184) are said to be a recombination of XMRV + MoMuLV.
Also, what's interesting is that this article says that the modified MoMuLV viruses caused leukemia in humans, suggesting that at least some unmodified MLVs might be able to infect humans, and cause leukemia.
This ties in with Judy's cohort of patients, and Snyderman's disease and research.

This paper says that MoMuLV envelope does not have a tropism for human cells, but I don't know what that's supposed to mean in practise, exactly.

I'd like to know more about what unmodified MoMuLV does once it's infected a human. There must be some research on this.
But just because it infects human cells, doesn't mean that isn't cleared out of the body by the immune system quickly after infection.
So it would be helpful to know if unmodified MoMuLV causes leukemia in humans, the same as the modified virus.
If anyone has any info on this, could they post please?
I'm sure a google search will throw something up, so i'll look later.
 

currer

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Bob, I think the paper you reference is only discussing the variants they found, and the tropism is defined by the envelope of the virus, which gets swapped around all the time in retroviruses.
The reference below states that some MoMLVs can infect human cells depending on the envelope gene.

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/EHS/prod/researchlab/bio/docs/Moloney_Murine_Leukemia_Virus.pdf

This reference says that some variants on MoMLV can infect human cells.

By modified are you talking about the gene therapy virus? Because nowadays they modify a retroviral vector so that it only undergoes one cycle of replication, just enough to insert the therapeutic gene. This is to prevent the MLV from inducing cancer in the new human host.

(Im doing this from memory, I havent got any references handy!)
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
Bob, I think the paper you reference is only discussing the variants they found, and the tropism is defined by the envelope of the virus, which gets swapped around all the time in retroviruses.
The reference below states that some MoMLVs can infect human cells depending on the envelope gene.

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/EHS/prod/researchlab/bio/docs/Moloney_Murine_Leukemia_Virus.pdf

This reference says that some variants on MoMLV can infect human cells.

Ah, ok, thanks currer, that explains the 'tropism' comment then.

By modified are you talking about the gene therapy virus?

Yes, that's right, I was.

Because nowadays they modify a retroviral vector so that it only undergoes one cycle of replication, just enough to insert the therapeutic gene.

My thoughts about the modified virus were about whether the human immune system would respond differently to a virus which has been modified for gene therapy, compared to the natural wild virus.

This is to prevent the MLV from inducing cancer in the new human host.

Well, that didn't seem to work then, did it!


Thanku for helpful the info currer.