Oncogenic viral DNA related to human breast cancer found on cattle milk and meat

Comp Immunol Microbiol Infect Dis. 2023 Aug 27;101:102053. doi: 10.1016/j.cimid.2023.102053. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTBovine leukemia virus (BLV) is a major cause of lymphoma in cattle and has been recently correlated to breast cancer in humans. How and whether BLV might reach humans remains unknown but it could be through cattle-derived milk and meat. Here our aim was to investigate whether BLV DNA could be found in fresh milk and raw meat destined to human consumption and whether anti-BLV antibodies could be detected in human blood at the same geographical region. Milk (n = 36) and meat (n = 54) samples were collected from cows knowingly seropositive or negative to BLV and evaluated by nested PCR targeting BLV tax gene. Human serum samples (n = 900) were tested by ELISA to detect anti-BLV antibodies. BLV DNA was detected in 39 % of the milk samples and in 32 % of meat samples from BLV positive cows. Anti-BLV antibodies were found in 4.1 % of the human serum samples. Our data further supports the hypothesis that BLV might cause a zoonotic infection and indicate that milk and meat from BLV-infected cattle might be considered a potential source of infection to humans.PMID:37672958 | DOI:10.1016/j.cimid.2023.102053

Source: Comparative immunology, microbiology and infectious diseases. - September 6, 2023 Category: Allergy & Immunology Authors: Daniel Lazzari de Quadros Vitoria Agnoletto Ribeiro Mariana Antunes Rezende Yasmin Ampese Mat é M árcio Alexandro Gomes Katia Secchi Daisy Maria Strottmann Rafael Frandoloso Luiz Carlos Kreutz Source Type: research