The Mutagenic and Immortalizing Potential of Polyoma virus Large T Antigen

Our laboratory has shown that SV40 is mutagenic in infected or transfected cells (Theile et al. 1976, 1980; Lubbe et al. 1982). This activity could be assigned to the function of large T antigen (Theile et al. 1980, 1987). It would be of great interest to know if there is any link between the mutagenic activity and one of the other known functions of this antigen, which include stimulation of replication and gene expression (Kingston et al. 1986). Using T-antigen mutants, we tried to separate individual domains of the SV40 large T antigen (Strauss et al. 1987; McVey, Strauss and Gluzman, unpublished data). Preliminary data of a deletion analysis suggest that immortalization is in some way related to mutagenesis; DNA binding of large T antigen appears to be involved in both processes (Strauss, unpublished data).