Human endogenous retrovirus expression and reverse transcriptase activity in the T47D mammary carcinoma cell line.

We have examined the human mammary tumor cell line T47D and have found that these cells produce virus-like particles which band at the typical density for retroviral particles on a sucrose gradient, possess reverse transcriptase activity, and package HERV-K10-like sequences. Using this information and a bacterial expression system to identify long open reading frames, we have identified individual clones which have full-length open reading frames for reverse transcriptase and RNase H and which could encode the reverse transcriptase activity detected in these cells.