|
|
||||||||
Division of Biochemical Virology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, U.S.A.
mKSA207 cells, a BALB/c mouse kidney line transformed by a tsA mutant of SV40, are temperature-dependent for the expression of the standard transformed phenotype. At the permissive temperature (33.5 °C), the mKSA207 cells resembled wild-type (wt) SV40 transformants; they contained the intranuclear SV40 T antigen, grew to high saturation density in monolayer culture in either 10% or 0.5% serum, and also in methylcellulose suspension culture and became multinucleate in cytochalasin B. At the nonpermissive temperature (39.8 °C), the mKSA207 cells lost some of their transformed properties; they grew only to low density in 10% serum, hardly grew at all in 0.5% serum or in methylcellulose suspension culture, and remained mono- or binucleate in cytochalasin B. At 40 °C in low serum, mKSA207 cells lost the intranuclear T antigen and when fed 10% serum at 39.8 °C, accumulated large amounts of T antigen in the cytoplasm. Derivatives of mKSA207 have been selected at 39.8 °C in liquid medium and methylcellulose suspension culture. The heat-adapted lines, like wt SV40 transformants, exhibited the standard transformed phenotype at both 33.5 and 39.8 °C. It is unlikely that acquisition of temperature-independence for the transformed phenotype was due to reversion of the tsA gene to wild-type because the heat-adapted cell lines displayed the cytoplasmic T antigen at 39.8 °C, characteristic of the parental mKSA207 cells and SV40 rescued from one of the heat-adapted lines was temperature sensitive for growth. The T antigen levels (complement fixation units per 106 cells) of heat-adapted lines grown at 39.8 °C were comparable to those of mKSA207 cells grown at 33.5 or 39.8 °C.
Received 4 July 1978;
accepted 25 September 1978.
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
| INT J SYST EVOL MICROBIOL | MICROBIOLOGY | J GEN VIROL |
| J MED MICROBIOL | ALL SGM JOURNALS | |