ABSTRACT
Polyomavirus (PyV) discovery was inaugurated in the 1950s with the report of a transmissible contamination of murine leukemia virus preparations that caused multiple tumors (Greek: poly; -oma) in newborn mice (1,2). In the 1960s, the simian virus (SV)-40 was discovered as a contamination of polio- and adenovirus vaccines raised in rhesus monkey kidney cells. The transforming properties in nonpermissive host cells and experimental tumor models could be attributed to the viral early gene product called the large T (tumor) antigen. SV40 became not only a paradigm of DNA tumor viruses, but also an important model of virus–host interactions. Despite occasional reports of SV40 detection in human specimens, a consistent role in human disease has not been demonstrated.
