title: Rates of evolution of the retroviral oncogene of Moloney murine sarcoma virus and of its cellular homologues.
abstract: A method is proposed for computing the rates of nucleotide substitution for an oncogene of a retrovirus (v-onc), its cellular homologue (c-onc), and the retrovirus genome simultaneously. The method has been applied to DNA sequences of the v-mos gene of Moloney murine sarcoma virus (Mo-MuSV) and the c-mos and gag genes of Mo-MuSV and Moloney murine leukemia virus (Mo-MuLV). The rates of nucleotide substitution for c-mos, the gag gene, and v-mos are estimated to be 1.71 X 10(-9), 6.3 X 10(-4), and 1.31 X 10(-3) per site per year, respectively. The rate of evolution of c-mos is comparable to that of many functional genes in DNA genomes, suggesting some important biological function played by cellular oncogenes. The rates of nucleotide substitution in the v-mos and gag genes are very high and are similar to those of RNA viral genes such as the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase genes in the influenza A virus. Thus, oncogenes seem to exemplify a general feature of genome evolution: the rate of evolution of RNA genomes can be more than a million times greater than that of DNA genomes because of a high mutation rate in the RNA genome.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gojobori
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yokoyama
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D015683:Gene Products, gag; D005814:Genes, Viral; D051379:Mice; D008980:Moloney murine sarcoma virus / Q000235:genetics*; D009857:Oncogenes; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D009053:Sarcoma Viruses, Murine / Q000235:genetics*; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D015683:Gene Products, gag; D012367:RNA, Viral; D014764:Viral Proteins