[Possible role of SV40 T antigen in cell transformation]

The effect of purified SV40 T antigen on DNA synthesis in isolated nuclei from the confluent culture of CV-1 cells was studied. In the presence of T antigen the incorporation of [3H]TTP into DNA was found to be 2 to 3 times as high as in the control nuclei. The resulting labelled DNA was subjected to alkaline sucrose gradient centrifugation, which revealed the presence of 4S DNA species, corresponding to Okazaki fragments of animal cells. The latter finding suggests a replicative mode of DNA synthesis induced by T antigen. T antigen isolated from the cells infected with SV40 tsA-mutant and kept at a nonpermissive (41 degrees) temperature fails to stimulate DNA synthesis in isolated nuclei from resting cells. On storage at 4 degrees SV40 T antigen gradually loses its ability to stimulate DNA synthesis and by the 8th day even suppresses it when tested on isolated nuclei from a growing cell culture. No effect of T antigen on the endonuclease-induced reparative synthesis of DNA could be observed. The data described suggest that T antigen is directly involved in the control of DNA synthesis in the cells infected or transformed with SV40.