Functional Analysis of Adenovirus-5 Host-range Deletion Mutants Defective for Transformation of Rat Embryo Cells

Abstract

Several lines of evidence indicate that the adenoviral genes that mediate cellular transformation are located within the left-hand 12% of the conventional viral genetic map. Adenovirus 2 (Ad2) left-end sequences are consistently present (Gallimore et al. 1974) and transcribed (Flint et al. 1975, 1976) in transformed cells. Other regions of the viral genome need not be present. Furthermore, rat kidney cells can be transformed by DNA fragments derived from the lefthand 12% of the addnoviral chromosome (Graham et al. 1975; van der Eb et al. 1979). The region required for transformation corresponds to one of the viral gene blocks expressed early after infection (region E1, 1.5–11.5 map units) (Philipson et al. 1975; Sharp et al. 1975; Berk and Sharp 1977; Chow et al. 1977).