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Contamination can happen to anyone.

Posted by Architectonic on 13 May 2011 at 08:08 GMT

There has been a lot of debate in recent times about the mixed results and validity of the detection of XMRV and other MLV-related viruses in both prostate cancer and CFS patients.

The Lombardi and Alter teams claim that they could not find evidence of murine DNA in their positive samples, but yet the contamination question continues. Likewise, the positive results in this study cannot be assumed to be evidence of these patients being infected with XMRV, especially since the serology and RT-PCR tests were negative.

Ruling out murine DNA with an in-house test is not sufficient to rule out contamination. Not least of which the fact that human cell lines can also be contaminated with MLV related viruses.
The mixed results to date suggest how easily contamination can occur and have suggested that multiple reagents or apparatuses could potentially be contaminated.

No competing interests declared.