An amino-terminal fragment of SV40 T antigen transforms REF52 cells.

An SV40 mutant, T147D, encodes only the amino-terminal 147 amino acids of large T antigen and does not make small t antigen. We show here that a retrovirus which expresses this mutant T antigen transforms rat REF52 cells as efficiently as a retrovirus that expresses both the wild-type large and small T antigens. This cell line had previously been refractory to transformation by mutants that make short, amino-terminal fragments of T antigen.