Abstract
Plaque-purified viable SV-40 deletion mutants containing deletions between map positions 0.54-0.59 induced tumors in 21-92% of LSH hamsters inoculated during the first 24 h of life. HinfI restriction endonuclease digestion patterns of the genomes of virions rescued from the tumor [African green monkey kidney CV-1] cells and the distribution of SV-40 early proteins in these cells associated tumor induction with the inoculated mutants. The DNA sequences comprising that portion of the early SV-40 genome between map positions 0.54-0.59 are not essential for SV-40 oncogenicity.