Helper activity of human leukemic tissue extracts for leukemia virus expression in mice.

Extracts of cultured human leukemic tissues increased the spleen focus-forming activity of Friend leukemia virus preparations in BALB/c and other partially resistant mice. Such mice carry the Fv-1(b) gene, which inhibits the expression of helper virus indigenous to the Friend virus complex, and allows co-infecting leukemia viruses of mice, cats, or chickens to substitute for the inhibited helper virus and increase the expression of the spleen focus-forming virus. The helper activity of extracts from human leukemic tissues shared several important properties with that associated with known leukemogenic viruses of animals.