Immunohistochemistry and biomolecular investigation for the evidence of JSRV-like retrovirus in human bronchiolo-alveolar carcinomas

The bronchioloalveolar adenocarcinoma was described in several species (human, bovine, ovine and domestic carnivores). Ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma (OPA) or pulmonary adenomatosis is a contagious carcinoma of sheep caused by an exogenous type D retrovirus denominated also jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus (JSRV). JSRV is responsible of the neoplastic transformation of type II pneumocytes and Clara cells. The human bronchioloalveolar adenocarcinoma (BAC) have histo-morphological features much similar to OPA. We report the study about ten BAC cases and one negative human control (lung). DNA extraction, PCR, sequencing of amplified product, immunohistochemistry and insitu hybridization were performed on all paraffin-embedded samples. Our results demonstrated the presence of JSRVlike sequences in all cases of human bronchiolo-alveolar carcinoma.