ArticleRetrovirology2020
Koala retrovirus diversity, transmissibility, and disease associations.
Article in Retrovirology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pre-Cambrian origin ofeLife · 2026Article
- Gammaretrovirus Infections in Humans in the Past, Present, and Future: Have We Defeated the Pathogen?Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Causes of mortality in koalas autopsied at the University of Melbourne.Australian veterinary journal · 2025Article
- The Oral Microbiome in Queensland Free-Ranging Koalas (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- A preliminary study of gene expression changes in Koalas Infected with Koala Retrovirus (KoRV) and identification of potential biomarkers for KoRV pathogenesis.BMC veterinary research · 2024Article
- Diversity and transmission of koala retrovirus: a case study in three captive koala populations.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Koala retrovirus load and non-A subtypes are associated with secondary disease among wild northern koalas.PLoS pathogens · 2022Article
- 'Cannibalism' of exogenous DNA sequences: The ancestral form of adaptive immunity which entails recognition of danger.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Review
- Koala retrovirus genetic diversity and transmission dynamics within captive koala populations.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Toll-Like Receptor and Cytokine Responses to Infection with Endogenous and Exogenous Koala Retrovirus, and Vaccination as a Control Strategy.Current issues in molecular biology · 2021Review
- Toll-Like Receptor Expression Profiles in Koala (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Retroviral integrations contribute to elevated host cancer rates during germline invasion.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundKoalas are infected with the koala retrovirus (KoRV) that exists as exogenous or endogenous viruses. KoRV is genetically diverse with co-infection with up to ten envelope subtypes (A-J) possible; KoRV-A is the prototype endogenous form. KoRV-B, first found in a small number of koalas with an increased leukemia prevalence at one US zoo, has been associated with other cancers and increased chlamydial disease. To better understand the molecular epidemiology of KoRV variants and the effect of increased viral loads (VLs) on transmissibility and pathogenicity we developed subtype-specific quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays and tested blood and tissue samples from koalas at US zoos (n = 78), two Australian zoos (n = 27) and wild-caught (n = 21) in Australia. We analyzed PCR results with available clinical, demographic, and pedigree data.
resultsAll koalas were KoRV-A-infected. A small number of koalas (10.3%) at one US zoo were also infected with non-A subtypes, while a higher non-A subtype prevalence (59.3%) was found in koalas at Australian zoos. Wild koalas from one location were only infected with KoRV-A. We observed a significant association of infection and plasma VLs of non-A subtypes in koalas that died of leukemia/lymphoma and other neoplasias and report cancer diagnoses in KoRV-A-positive animals. Infection and VLs of non-A subtypes was not associated with age or sex. Transmission of non-A subtypes occurred from dam-to-offspring and likely following adult-to-adult contact, but associations with contact type were not evaluated. Brief antiretroviral treatment of one leukemic koala infected with high plasma levels of KoRV-A, -B, and -F did not affect VL or disease progression.
conclusionsOur results show a significant association of non-A KoRV infection and plasma VLs with leukemia and other cancers. Although we confirm dam-to-offspring transmission of these variants, we also show other routes are possible. Our validated qPCR assays will be useful to further understand KoRV epidemiology and its zoonotic transmission potential for humans exposed to koalas because KoRV can infect human cells.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.