Technical Abstract: Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were used to test for the presence of subgroup J avian leukosis virus (ALV J) envelope antigen gp85 and provirus, respectively in various tissues (adrenal gland, bone marrow, gonad, heart, kidney, liver, lung, pancreas, proventriculus, sciatic nerve, spleen, and thymus). Tissues were collected from 32-week-old commercial meat-type and ADOL experimental white leghorn line 0 chickens with the following different infection profiles: 1) persistently viremic chickens tolerized in ovo with no neutralizing antibody (NAb) on any sampling (tV+A-); 2) persistently viremic, non-tolerized chickens infected at hatch and tested positive for NAb on one or two samplings (ntV+A-); 3) persistently viremic chickens infected at hatch with concurrent NAb on most samplings (V+A+); and 4) non-viremic chickens infected at hatch with detectable NAb response (V-A+). There was a direct correlation between viremia and tissue distribution of gp85, regardless of the NAb status and strain of chickens, as expression of ALV J gp85 was noted in only viremic (tV+A-, ntV+A-, V+A+), but not in non-viremic seroconverted chickens (V-A+). Of the four oligonucleotide primers pairs sets used in PCR to identify ALV J provirus, only one primer set termed H5/H7 was useful in demonstrating ALV J proviral DNA in majority of the tissues tested from non-viremic, antibody positive chickens (V-A+). The results suggest that PCR using primer set termed H5/H7 is more sensitive than IHC in identifying ALV J in chickens that have been exposed to virus, but are not actively viremic.