Revertants and partial transformants of rat fibroblasts infected with Fujinami sarcoma virus.

Fifteen revertants were isolated from three independent clones of rat fibroblasts transformed by Fujinami sarcoma virus (FSV). Three revertant clones resulted from the deletion of the one copy of the FSV provirus, and one encoded an enzymatically inactive, transformation-defective protein. The remaining revertant clones were characterized by a transcriptional block of the provirus. Digestion of chromosomal DNA with MspI and HpaII revealed that the FSV provirus was hypermethylated in these revertants, whereas proviral DNA of their spontaneous retransformants was hypomethylated. Furthermore, the revertants had lost DNase I-hypersensitive sites in and around the FSV provirus. The effect of transcriptional regulation of the FSV provirus was further analyzed in clones showing various degrees of phenotypic transformation. We quantitated v-fps mRNA levels in these cells by liquid hybridization and found that increasing levels of viral RNA correlated with a more pronounced transformed phenotype. These results suggest that transcription of FSV proviral DNA is under both viral and cellular control and that transformation by FSV is a function of the dosage of v-fps mRNA.