Characterization and separation of viral DNA polymerase in mouse milk.

Two DNA polymerase with properties of viral RNA-directed DNA polymerase can be found in RIII mouse milk. One enzyme is the polymerase of type-C viruses; this enzyme prefers manganese to magnesium with poly(rA).oligo(dT) as synthetic template, is inhibited by specific sera, and has an apparent molecular weight of 70,000. Milk from BALB/c and NIH Swiss mice contain a vast predominance of this type-C enzyme. The other DNA polymerase from RIII mouse milk prefers magnesium to manganese, is not inhibited by type-C antipolymerase serum, and appears larger on gel chromatography than the type-C viral polymerase. Its presence in milk from RIII mice and absence from milk of mice with low content of mammary tumor virus correlates to the relative degree of type-B virus expression in these mice. The DNA polymerase of Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, isolated from a rhesus monkey breast tumor, also has a marked preference for magnesium with poly(rA).oligo(dT), is not immunologically related to primate type-C viruses, and appears larger than the gibbon type-C enzyme on gel chromatography.