Background: There are questions regarding the prevalence of xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) in patients with prostate cancer and its association with the RNASEL R462Q polymorphism. We therefore investigated whether XMRV infection could be found in patients with prostate cancer from the southern United States, and we sought to verify the association with the R462Q.
Methods: Prostate tissue specimens of 144 patients with prostate cancer from the southern United States were genotyped for R462Q by real time polymerase chain reaction allelic discrimination and were screened for XMRV proviral DNA by nested polymerase chain reaction specific for the env gene.
Results: The R462Q polymorphism was found at an allelic frequency of 0.33. XMRV was detected in 32 (22%) of the 144 patients. Patients were significantly more likely to test positive for XMRV in both tumor and normal tissue rather than either alone (κ = 0.64). A positive result for XMRV was not significantly correlated with the R462Q polymorphism (P = .82) or clinical pathological parameters of prostate cancer, including Gleason score (P = .29).
Conclusions: XMRV is detectable in normal and tumor prostate tissue from patients with prostate cancer, independent of R462Q. The presence of XMRV in normal tissue suggests that infection may precede cancer onset.