Lack of maedi viral related RNA in pulmonary carcinoma of sheep (jaagsiekte).

Molecular hybridisation with radioactively labelled DNA complementary to the RNA of the maedi virus was used to probe for homologous RNA in the polysome fraction of pulmonary carcinomas (jaagiekte) of Awassi sheep. No sequence homology was detected, which suggests that maedi (or visna) virus is not implicated in the aetiology of pulmonary carcinoma of sheep.