Hepatic gene expression in transgenic mice with conditional liver-specific expression of the SV40 17kT/LT oncoproteins

The SV40 large (LT) and small (st) antigens are produced from a single alternatively spliced pre-mRNA, that when co-expressed, transform a variety of cells in vitro and in vivo. However, 17kT, a relatively uncharacterized third protein that is co-linear with LT for the first 131 amino acids, is also produced from the early viral pre-mRNA by removal of an additional intron from the LT transcript. Here we report a line of transgenic mice expressing a liver-specific dox-inducible viral transcript that fails to yield any detectable LT protein, yet produces abundant 17kT. Comparative analysis of livers of transgenic mice expressing either 17kT or LT demonstrates that while 17kT is a potent stimulator of cell proliferation, it is ineffective at inducing liver tumor development, due in part, to the failure of 17kT to effectively induce the expression of growth regulators and reactivate expression of imprinted and developmentally regulated hepatic genes. These studies highlight key functional differences between LT and 17kT in their ability to transform quiescent primary epithelial cells in vivo, and demonstrate how specific functional domains within LT impact cell-specific gene expression to promote oncogenesis.

6

Comerford SA, Schultz N, Hinnant EA, Klapproth S, Hammer RE