Abstract
Publisher Summary This chapter describes a quantitative and reproducible assay of Rous sarcoma virus (RSV), the focus assay, and methods for obtaining cloned preparations of RSV, through both the focus and soft agar-colony assays. Large-scale growth of RSV is discussed in the chapter. Avian sarcoma virus (ASV) is capable of inducing rapidly growing solid tumors of the connective tissue in fowl, and morphological transformation of cells in culture. Division of the initially transformed cell, in addition to infection and transformation of adjacent cells, results in the formation of an island or “focus” of morphologically transformed cells within the uninfected monolayer of fibroblasts. Most strains of RSV are nondefective for replication—that is, infection of a cell with a single virion results in both infectious-virus replication and cell transformation. Viruses of the Schmidt–Ruppin and Prague strains of RSV and the B77 strain of ASV are most frequently used for biochemical studies, as they can be readily cloned and yield good titers of virus.
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