title: Oncogenicity of virulent Marek's disease virus cloned as bacterial artificial chromosomes.
abstract: Marek's disease virus (MDV) is an oncogenic alphaherpesvirus that induces T-cell lymphomas in poultry. We report the construction of bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones of the highly oncogenic RB-1B strain by inserting mini-F vector sequences into the U(S)2 locus. MDV reconstituted from two BAC clones induced rapid-onset lymphomas similar to those induced by the wild-type virus. Virus reconstituted from another BAC clone that showed a 7.7-kbp deletion in the internal and terminal unique long repeat regions was nononcogenic, suggesting that the deleted region may be associated with oncogenicity. The generation of the oncogenic BAC clones of MDV is a significant step in unraveling the oncogenic determinants of this virus.
authors.affiliation: Viral Oncogenesis Group, Institute for Animal Health, High St., Compton, Berkshire RG20 7NN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Lawrence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Petherbridge
authors.forename: Andrew C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Susan J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Baigent
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Howes
authors.forename: Melanie A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Sacco
authors.forename: Nikolaus
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Osterrieder
authors.forename: Venugopal K
authors.initials: VK
authors.lastname: Nair
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002642:Chick Embryo; D022202:Chromosomes, Artificial, Bacterial; D018628:Gene Dosage; D025922:Mardivirus / Q000235:genetics / Q000472:pathogenicity* / Q000502:physiology; D008380:Marek Disease / Q000209:etiology; D014774:Virulence; D014779:Virus Replication