In 1953, Gross [1 ] reported that a component in cell free filtrates from a mouse leukemia promoted tumor formation in the parotid gland (neck tumors) after injection into newborn mice. Later Stewart and Eddy [2] grew the virus in mouse embryo cells, characterized its properties, and demonstrated that it could induce a variety of tumor types when inoculated into newborn mice, hence the name polyomavirus (later named murine polyomavirus (MPyV)). The work of Stewart and Eddy lead to tissue culture methods for propagating transformable cell lines and tumor cells, permitting the study of phenotypic and molecular changes related to tumor development. These techniques provided the basis for unravelling the field of oncogenes and tumor suppressors. The first reported [3] primate polyomavirus, Simian Virus 40 (SV40), was isolated from African green monkey kidney cells used for the production of poliovirus vaccine.
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