Abstract
Recently, it was shown that the synthetic polymers, poly rA·oligo dT and poly rCm·oligo dG were effective template-primers for assaying reverse transcriptase originated from RNA tumor virus. These template-primers have been used for distinguishing reverse transcriptase from DNA dependent DNA polymerase (DNA polymerase β or γ). Reverse transcriptase activities were estimated in leukemia and hemopoietic dysplasia. They were five cases of AML, one case of APL, one case of AMoL, two cases of CML, three cases of hemopoietic dysplasia, three cases of ALL and one case of hairy cell leukemia. DNA polymerase activities and the ratio of DNA polymerase activities were measured by different template-primers, poly rA·oligo dT, poly rCm·oligo dG and poly dA·oligo dT.
As a result, reverse transcriptase activities were found in one case of AML, two cases of hemopoietic dysplasia, one case of APL and one case of hairy cell leukemia. It is especially noted that reverse transcriptase activities have been found in two cases of hemopoietic dysplasia. They should be measured repeatedly during the clinical course of these patients. It is inferred from these results that RNA virus might be concerned to the etiology of some cases of human leukemia.
