High-affinity SV40 T-antigen binding sites in the human genome.

We describe two different approaches to isolate human genomic sequences possessing high-affinity binding sites for the simian virus 40 (SV40) large T antigen. First, SV40 T antigen was added to Sau3A-restricted human DNA; the resulting T-antigen-DNA complexes were collected after repeated passages through nitrocellulose filters. The second approach involves the specific immunoprecipitation of chromatin fragments, generated by Sau3A treatment of nuclear chromatin from SV40-transformed human cells. The DNA fragments obtained were cloned in plasmid vectors for further investigation. Using the filter binding approach we isolated four different fragments with high-affinity binding sites. The binding site in one fragment was related to the strong T-antigen binding site I in the SV40 genome. The other three fragments contained multiple recognition pentamers, GA(G)GGC. Only one fragment with a high-affinity binding site was identified among the immunoprecipitable chromatin fragments. This DNA fragment belongs to the L1 family of human repetitive DNA. We present evidence suggesting that a significant fraction of human L1 elements possesses T-antigen binding sites. L1-related sequences appear as extrachromosomal elements in an SV40-transformed human cell line, and the amount of extrachromosomal L1 DNA was found to increase after fusion of transformed cells to permissive monkey cells.