title: Changes in the N- and C-terminal sequences of the murine R7 Gag-tMos protein affect brain lesion induction.
abstract: Our preliminary studies suggested that the novel gag-truncated mos (tmos) open reading frame (ORF) of R7, a spontaneous deletion mutant of Moloney murine sarcoma virus 124 (MoMuSV124), may be responsible for R7's unique ability to induce brain lesions in all R7-injected mice. However, when we replaced the gag-tmos ORF with either the MoMuSV124 or the homologous myeloproliferative sarcoma virus env-mos gene, we found that both recombinant viruses also induced brain lesions in all injected mice. Although these studies suggested that the critical determinants for brain lesion induction may reside in the tmos sequence common to all three viruses, they did not demonstrate if the N-terminus of Mos was dispensable for this activity. By inserting the FLAG sequence at the 3' end of the R7 gag-tmos ORF, we demonstrated that R7 does synthesize a Gag-tMos fusion protein. Using R7 gag deletion mutants with and without the FLAG sequence, we further demonstrated that (i) deletion of the entire gag sequence abolished R7's transforming activity; (ii) the ability of the virus to transform cultured NIH/3T3 cells was significantly reduced only when most of gag was deleted; (iii) the ability of the virus to induce brain lesions was inversely proportional to the extent of its gag deletions; and (iv) the insertion of FLAG at the Mos C-terminus did not reduce the in vitro transforming activity of the FLAG-tagged viruses but did reduce their ability to induce brain lesions. Thus, we have demonstrated that altering the N- or C-terminus of the R7 Gag-tMos fusion protein can affect disease manifestation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Carcinogenesis, Science Park-Research Division, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, PO Box 389, Smithville, Texas, TX 78957, USA.
authors.forename: P H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Yuen
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Devroe
authors.forename: K Y
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: P K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D016475:3T3 Cells; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D015152:Blotting, Northern; D015153:Blotting, Western; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology*; D002460:Cell Line; D015681:Fusion Proteins, gag-onc / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D017353:Gene Deletion; D015750:Genes, gag; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008980:Moloney murine sarcoma virus / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D016254:Mutagenesis, Insertional; D009154:Mutation; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D012313:RNA / Q000032:analysis; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D015681:Fusion Proteins, gag-onc; D012367:RNA, Viral; D012313:RNA