Cell cycle control of polyomavirus-induced transformation.

The cell cycle dependence of polyomavirus transformation was analyzed in infections of nonpermissive Fischer rat (FR3T3) cells released from G0. A 5- to 100-fold (average, ca. 20-fold) difference in relative frequency of transformation was found for cells infected in the early G1 phase of the cell cycle compared with cells infected in G2. Differences in the relative level of early viral gene expression in those two cell populations were equivalent to those obtained for transformation frequencies. The difference in transformation potential was accounted for only in part by a cell cycle control of viral adsorption (2- to 15-fold effect). Furthermore, in cells infected in the early G1 phase, viral gene expression was induced as a big synchronous burst of large transcripts of variable sizes, delayed till the G1 phase of the cell cycle after that in which infection took place. Thus, the results demonstrate that the abortive infection cycle of G0-released FR3T3 cells is cell cycle regulated at least at two steps: adsorption and another early step, nuclear transport, decapsidation, up to or including the transcription of the viral early genes. The cell cycle regulation of these steps results in a similar regulation of the abortive and stable transformation processes, although it is more pronounced for the latter. A model implicating c-fos and c-jun is proposed.