Multiple MLV Related Retroviruses
27/Aug/2010
After some of the dust has settled following on from last week’s press release regarding the PNAS magazines NIH/FDA XMRV replication study it has emerged that while they did find a new family of MLV retroviruses closely related to XMRV they did not actually find the XMRV retrovirus. This is more in line with what is expected and known of other retroviruses so did not come as a big surprise. According to the WPI they have also discovered various related MLV's in patients they have been testing also. As part of the NIH/FDA study they tested old blood sample but then went back and tested some of the same patients again and found that they had a different type of MLV retrovirus so it may be that the MLV retroviruses are mutating in the host body.