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Treatment of a cell line derived from the Asian feral mouse Mus caroli with 5-bromodeoxyuridine induces an infectious, xentropic type C virus. This virus shares strongly cross-reactive reverse transcriptase (RNA-dependent DNA polymerase) and p30 antigens and crossinterferes with type C viruses isolated from a woolly monkey (SSAV) and gibbon apes (GALV). By similar criteria, the caroli virus is much less related to previously described type C viruses of the laboratory mouse, Mus musculus. Induction of virus from 10 of 13 single cell clones indicates that the virus is endogenous in Mus caroli cells. Thre results suggest that infectious primate type C viruses arose by trans-species infection(s) of certain primates with endogenous type C viruses from MUs caroli or a closely related Mus species.
Lieber et al. (Sun,) studied this question.