Abstract
DEFECTIVE type C RNA tumour viruses which are genetic recombinants between ecotropic and xenotropic viruses have been described and suggested to be the real transforming agents during the course of viral-induced lymphatic leukaemia1,2. The spleen focus-forming virus (SFFV-F) component of the Friend virus (FV) complex is a defective virus and is the erythroid-specific component of the complex which stimulates erythropoiesis in the mouse and is also involved in the relatively rare event of erythroid transformation3,4. In order to examine the role of the SFFV component during erythroblastosis and subsequent transformation of erythroid cells, we have synthesised a SFFV-specific probe using FV released from F4-6, a transformed erythroid cell line5,6. We report here that, using this probe, no xenotropic sequences are present in the SFFV-specific cDNA and that there is a low level of transcription of part of the SFFV sequences but not specifically during normal erythroid differentiation. Our results thus show that if SFFV is a recombinant virus, the xenotropic sequences are only present in the lymphatic leukaemia virus (LLV)-related common sequences of the FV genome. Furthermore, our experiments do not support a hypothesis whereby the specific action of SFFV can be explained by transcription of the SFFV-specific genome during normal erythroid differentiation.
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