Unique carcinogen enhancement of transformation phenotype displayed by cloned rat embryo fibroblast (CREF) cells treated with methyl methanesulfonate and infected with a specific hostrange mutant of type 5 adenovirus

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Pretreatment of cloned rat embryo fibroblast (CREF) cells with methyl methanesulfonate (MMS) prior to infection with wild-type 5 adenovirus (H5wt) or a temperature-sensitive mutant of Ad5 (H5ts125) results in an MMS dose-dependent enhancement of viral transformation. With both viral isolates, MMS enhanced the transformation frequency when normalized for cell toxicity but did not induce a carcinogen dose-dependent increase in the absolute number of foci above solvent-treated controls. In contrast, pretreatment of CREF cells with MMS prior to infection with a host-range mutant of Ad5 (H5hr1) which contains a single basepair deletion in the E1a-transforming region of Ad5 and displays a cold-sensitive transformation phenotype, results in an MMS dose-dependent increase in the absolute number of transformed foci in comparison with solvent-treated controls as well as an increase in transformation frequency when normalized for cell toxicity. To explore the possible mechanism by which H5hr1 displays its unique carcinogen-enhancement of transformation (CET) phenotype we have examined the effect of MMS pretreatment on the frequency of transformation of CREF cells infected with mutants of Ad5 which were engineered to contain either a deletion (H5 dl 101) or an insertion (H5 in 106) mutation in the Ela gene region resulting in a cold-sensitive transformation phenotype similar to H5hr1. MMS-pretreated CREF cells infected with H5 dl 101 or H5 in 106 did not demonstrate a dose-dependent increase in the absolute number of transformed foci as was observed with carcinogen-pretreated H5hr1-infected CREF cells. These findings suggest that the unique CET phenotype displayed by H5hr1 may result from a second site mutation in a region of H5hr1 other than the E1a-transforming region and/or a novel interaction between gene products resulting from the specific mutation in E1a and other region( s ) of the H5hr1 genome. Our investigations also indicate that the CREF/H5hr1 system should prove useful in analyzing chemical-viral interactions in cell transformation.