Establishment and characterization of Indian muntjak cell lines transformed with simian virus 40

Kidney cells of an Indian muntjak were transformed with simian virus 40 (SV40). The transformation efficiency of the tertiary cultures was very high when estimated by the agar suspension culture method. The efficiency was about 0.015% when infected at an input multiplicity of 0.4 p.f.u./cell. Clonal cell lines were established from the colonies in soft agar medium. Most of the cell lines and their subclones produced a small amount of infectious SV40. The SV40 virion antigen-positive cells in a clone increased from 0.2% to about 40% by the treatment with mitomycin C. More than 70% of the cells in two cell lines were normal in G- and C-banded karyotypes, indicating that chromosomal change is not a necessary step in the process of transformation of the Indian muntjak cells with SV40.