What are the characteristics of feline leukemia virus?
FeLV is a type of virus called a retrovirus. That puts it in the same family as feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV, the virus that causes AIDS). Retroviruses are species-specific. This means a feline retrovirus will only infect cats; a human retrovirus will only infect humans. Retroviruses are made up of RNA. In the host, the RNA is transcribed into DNA and incorporated into the DNA of the host’s cells. Retroviruses are fragile, being easily inactivated by ultraviolet light, heat, detergents, and drying. Retroviruses are widespread in nature. As a matter of fact, they have been around for so many millions of years, parts of a feline retrovirus are actually incorporated into every cat’s DNA. This is called “endogenous” FeLV DNA. This is passed from generation to generation. There are three subgroups of FeLV and each tends to cause a different type of disease: • FeLV-A is found in all naturally infected cats and is easily transmitted. For this reaso
