Human genome: proto-oncogenes and proretroviruses

A brief review of the studies undertaken at the Laboratory for Molecular Bases of Oncogenesis (Institute of Molecular Biology, Moscow) till middle of 1984 is presented. The human genome contains multiple dispersed nucleotide sequences related to the proto-oncogene mos and to proretroviral sequences in tight juxtaposition to each other. From sequencing appropriate cloned fragments of human DNA in phage and plasmid vectors it follows that one of these regions, NV-1, is a pseudogene of proto-mos with partial duplications and two Alu elements intervening its coding sequence, and the other, CL-1, seems to be also a mos-related gene with a deletion of the internal part of the structural gene. CL-1 is flanked by a proretroviral-like sequence including tRNAiMet binding site and U5 (part of the long terminal repeat). The proretroviral-like sequences are transcribed in 21-35S poly(A)+RNA abundant in normal and malignant human cells. Two hypotheses are proposed: endogenous retroviruses take part in amplification of at least some proto-oncogenes; proto-oncogenes are inactivated via insertion of movable genetic elements and conversion into pseudogenes. Potential oncogenicity of a normal human genome undergoes two controversial influences: it increases due to proto-oncogene amplification and decreases due to inactivation of some of them.