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Product category: Reference standards
News Release from: Advanced Biotechnologies | Subject: SV 40 control DNA
Edited by the Laboratorytalk Editorial Team on 09 August 2004

Quantitated PCR control DNA for SV 40

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Simian virus 40 is suspected to be a carcinogen, and is estimated to infect up to 30 million people in the USA as the result of contaminated polio vaccine used in the 1950s and 60s

Simian virus 40 (SV 40), a monkey polyomavirus discovered in 1960, was detected in rhesus monkey kidney cell cultures that were used in the production of the original Salk and Sabin polio vaccines Between 1955 and early 1963, it is estimated that 10-30 million Americans were inadvertently exposed to live SV 40 through contaminated polio vaccine

Humans can be infected with SV 40 by contact with virus-carrier healthy primates, through contaminated polio vaccine, and by person-to-person contact through salivary secretions.

SV 40 is suspected to be a carcinogen or a co-carcinogen in the pathogenic mechanism of some forms of human tumours because of the following observations.

SV 40 DNA sequences and its large T-antigen protein have been detected in human tumours, such as ependymomas, osteosarcomas, mesotheliomas, choroid plexus carcinomas/papillomas, and non-Hodgkin lymphomas.

SV 40 T-antigen, a potent oncoprotein, binds to human tumour suppressor genes p53 and pRB.

Infectious SV 40 has been isolated from human brain tumours.

SV 40 DNA transforms human cells in vitro.

The DNA sequences of human isolates of SV 40 (eg, SVCPC, SVMEN, SVPML-1) can be distinguished from wildtype monkey SV 40 isolates by variations in the structure of the viral regulatory region and in the nucleotide sequence of the variable domain at the C-terminus of the large T-antigen gene.

SV 40 can be detected in normal or neoplastic human tissues by PCR and by Southern blot hybridisation using SV 40-specific probes.

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