Characterization of a gene encoding a 115 K super T antigen expressed by a SV40-transformed rat cell line.

It has been reported that SV40-transformed V 11 F 1 clone 1 subclone 7 rat cells (subclone 7) produce a super T antigen of 115,000 M. This super T antigen is entirely SV40 coded and is synthesized by translation of an elongated form of SV40 early mRNA (May, E., Kress, M. Daya-Grosjean, L., Monier, R. and May, P. (1981) J. Virol., 37, 24-35). The results reported here show that there is only one independent insertion of viral DNA in the cellular genome of subclone 7 cells. When DNA from subclone 7 cells was cleaved with Bam HI endonuclease two distinct SV40 sequence containing fragments were generated with sizes of 5 Kb and 10 Kb, respectively. Two recombinant cosmids were constructed by insertion of the 5 Kb and 10 Kb fragments, respectively, into cosmid pHC 79. Using restriction map analysis and nucleotide sequencing, we showed that the 5 Kb fragment actually contained the complete sequence of a gene encoding super T antigen. As compared to the normal SV40 early gene, the sequence of super T gene showed the following rearrangements: (i) The segment between nucleotides 4116 - 3544 was duplicated in a direct order and (ii) these two copies of 573 nucleotide sequence were separated by a 93 nucleotide tract which was a nearly perfect inverted repeat of the segment located between nucleotides 4868 and 4776 (nucleotide numbering used here = Weissmann number +17).