Bovine papillomavirus vector that propagates as a plasmid in both mouse and bacterial cells.

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Abstract
The construction of a bovine papillomavirus (BPV)-derived recombinant plasmid that propagates as an extrachromosomal element in both mouse and bacterial cells is reported. Plasmids composed of a subgenomic transforming fragment of BPV DNA, a deletion derivative of pBR322 and a 7.6-kilobase fragment of DNA from the human .beta.-globin gene cluster efficiently induce focus formation on mouse C127 cells. BPV-.beta.-globin hybrids are maintained in the transformed cells as plasmids with a copay number of .apprx. 10-30/cell. Plasmids indistinguishable from the input DNA were recovered by transformation of bacteria with low MW DNA from transformed mouse cells. The human .beta.-globin gene linked to BPV DNA is transcribed from its own promoter at a high level in these cells. The expression of BPV-linked cellular genes in conjunction with the ability to shuttle DNA between bacteria and mammalian cells may provide a rapid means of analyzing and recovering genes that confer an identifiable phenotype upon mammalian cells.