Genetic determinants of bovine leukemia virus pathogenesis

The understanding of HTLV-induced disease is hampered by the lack of a suit able animal model allowing the study of both viral replication and leukemog enesis irt vivo. Although valuable information has been obtained in differe nt species, such as rabbits, mice, rats, and monkeys, none of these systems was able to conciliate topics as different as viral infectivity, propagati on within the host, and generation of leukemic cells. An alternate strategy is based on the understanding of diseases induced by viruses closely relat ed to HTLV-1, like bovine leukemia virus (BLV), Both viruses indeed belong to the same subfamily of retroviruses, harbor a similar genomic organizatio n, and infect and transform cells of the hematopoietic system. The main adv antage of the BLV system is that it allows direct experimentation in two di fferent species, cattle and sheep.