Complement fixation and tissue culture assays for mouse leukemia viruses.

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Abstract
Sera of rats carrying a transplanted leukemia induced by Rauscher virus react in the CF test with METC cells infected with Rauscher, Moloney, Friend, WM1-B, and "avirulent Friend virus," with extracts of mouse and rat tumors induced by these viruses and the Gross virus, and with spontaneous mouse leukemias. In addition to indicating that murine leukemia viruses share at least one major antigen, this finding has provided the basis for rapid (2-4 weeks), sensitive, and reproducible tissue culture isolation, titration, and neutralization tests for all laboratory-adapted strains of murine leukemia virus tested, except Gross virus. The present tissue culture procedure does not appear to provide a sensitive means of detecting naturally occurring strains, possibly because of their narrower host range. Tissue culture cell harvests contain 1-2 logs higher titers of virus and antigen than culture fluids, providing a simple means of obtaining high titer preparations. The CF antigen probably represents the virion, since they are of comparable size, and rat sera with high CF antibody also contain high titer neutralizing antibody.