Murine T lymphomas with retroviral inserts in the chromosomal 15 locus for plasmacytoma variant translocations

Abstract

The frequent trisomy of murine chromosome 15 in T lymphomas suggests that it bears one or more genes conducive to T-cell neoplasia1. One such gene seems to be c-myc, the oncogene frequently activated in B-lymphoid tumours either by retroviral insertion, as in the avian bursal lymphomas2,3, or by a translocation to the immunoglobulin heavy-chain locus, as in the predominant t(12; 15) of murine plasmacytomas and the analogous t(14; 8) of human Burkitt lymphomas (for reviews, see refs 1, 4-6). The c-myc gene was strongly implicated in T-cell neoplasia when 15-25% of T lymphomas arising in AKR mice, a strain prone to leukaemia, were found to have retroviral inserts near c-myc7,8. Proviruses near..