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Journal of Virology, November 1999, p. 9614-9618, Vol. 73, No. 11
Department of Molecular and Structural
Biology1 and Department of Medical
Microbiology and Immunology,3 University of
Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark, and Institute for Molecular
Virology, GSF-National Research Center for Environment and
Health, D-85764 Neuherberg, Germany2
Received 9 June 1999/Accepted 30 July 1999
A panel of mouse T-cell lymphomas induced by SL3-3 murine leukemia
virus (MLV) and three primer binding site mutants thereof (A. H. Lund, J. Schmidt, A. Luz, A. B. Sørensen, M. Duch, and F. S. Pedersen, J. Virol. 73:6117-6122, 1999) were analyzed for the
occurrence of recombination between the exogenous input virus and
endogenous MLV-like sequences within the 5' leader region. Evidence of
recombination within the region studied was found in 14 of 52 tumors
analyzed. Sequence analysis of a ~330-bp fragment of 44 chimeric
proviruses, encompassing the U5, the primer binding site, and the
upstream part of the 5' untranslated region, enabled us to map
recombination sites, guided by distinct scattered nucleotide differences. In 30 of 44 analyzed sequences, recombination was mapped
to a 33-nucleotide similarity window coinciding with the kissing-loop
stem-loop motif implicated in dimerization of the diploid genome.
Interestingly, the recombination pattern preference found in
replication-competent viruses from T-cell tumors is very similar to the
pattern previously reported for retroviral vectors in cell culture
experiments. The data therefore sustain the hypothesis that the kissing
loop, presumably via a role in RNA dimer formation, constitutes a hot
spot for reverse transcriptase-mediated recombination in MLV.
0022-538X/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
The Kissing-Loop Motif Is a Preferred Site of 5'
Leader Recombination during Replication of SL3-3 Murine Leukemia
Viruses in Mice
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Molecular and Structural Biology, University of Aarhus, C. F. Møllers Allé, Bldg. 130, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Phone: 45 8942 3188. Fax: 45 8619 6500. E-mail: fsp{at}mbio.aau.dk.
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