The Friend virus genome: partial characterization of a complete DNA copy

A complementary DNA probe has been prepared from the Friend murine erythroleukaemia virus complex released by Friend cells (FV cDNAD-) and Friend cells induced to differentiate (FV cDNAD+). Molecular hybridization analysis shows that: (a) FV cDNAD+ is close to being a complete copy of the virus genome and the distribution of sequences is uniform with respect to their distribution in the Friend virus genome. (b) Hybridization of 70S RNA from the cloned helper virus to the total FVc DNAD+ probe demonstrates that a large proportion of the cDNA is specific to the transforming spleen focus forming virus. (c) Hybridization of the probe to normal and transformed cell DNA shows that there are about seven Friend virus related genes in normal DNA and almost twice this amount in transformed cell DNA. A significant minor proportion (20%) of the cDNA probe anneals only to virus related sequences in the transformed cell DNA. (d) An analysis of the kinetics of annealing of the cDNA to an excess template RNA shows that the minimum base sequence complexity of the Friend virus complex is 4 x 10(6). (e) An analysis of the cross hybridization between FV cDNAD+ and 60 to 70S RNA isolated from virus released by uninduced and induced cells shows that the genome of the induced and uninduced Friend virus is almost identical.