Rous sarcoma

Then a digression on badger hair, loosely presaging the key discovery of the tumour-causing Rous sarcoma virus.

It would be interesting to learn more about how unintegrated Rous sarcoma virus is silenced through this NP220-independent mechanism.

However, the NP220-independent silencing of gene expression of unintegrated Rous sarcoma viral DNA was found to be SETDB1 dependent because the deletion of the gene encoding SETDB1 led to increased gene expression of the viral DNA.

But, in turn, some retroviruses could have evolved mechanisms to evade such gene silencing, which might explain why Rous sarcoma virus has lost cytidine-rich LTRs that would provide NP220 binding sites.

The microbe, now called Rous sarcoma virus, was the first oncovirus, or cancer-causing virus, ever found.