Nucleotide sequence of the transforming gene of avian myeloblastosis virus

Avian myeloblastosis virus is defective in reproductive capacity, requiring a helper virus to provide the viral proteins essential for synthesis of new infectious virus. This virus arose by recombination of the nondefective helper virus and host cellular sequences present within the normal avian genome. These latter sequences are essential for leukemogenic activity. The complete nucleotide sequence of this region is reported. Within the acquired cellular sequences there is an open reading frame of 795 nucleotides starting with the initiation codon ATG (adenine, thymine, guanine) and terminating with the triplet TAG. This open reading frame could code for the putative transforming protein of 265 amino acids with a molecular weight of approximately 30,000.