Koala retrovirus integration site sequencing in healthy and tumour tissues

Koalas are undergoing active germ line invasion by the koala retrovirus (KoRV-A). Koalas also and exhibit extremely high rates of cancer, particularly lymphoma and leukaemia. Here we sequence KoRV-A integration sites in both tumour and healthy tissues of 10 koalas with cancer. This is done using an inverse PCR technique so that each read contains part of retroviral sequence and the adjoining koala sequence. We find novel integrations in tumour tissues, with nearby genes significantly enriched by cancer associated genes.