Concepedia

Abstract

The proteins associated with SV40 infection are too numerous to be accounted for by the relatively small coding capacity of the 3 × 106 dalton viral DNA. These include several virus-specific antigens appearing in virus-transformed cells and during the early stages of lytic infection of permissive host cells and at least five virion polypeptides. Furthermore, the phenotype of the transformed cell may be controlled by additional virus-specified proteins. In view of the potent oncogenic properties of SV40, it is important to have a method of establishing which proteins are in fact virus coded in order to pinpoint the causal event(s) in the virus-induced transformation process.