Pleiotropic effects of a trans-dominant adenovirus type 2 mutant.

Abstract

A new temperature-sensitive mutant of adenovirus type 2 (Ad2) was isolated and characterized. H2ts48 is DNA positive but fails to synthesize stable 95K, 80K and Va (Pre-VI) polypeptides. In addition many viral polypeptides exhibit reduced stability during pulse-chase experiments. No virion particles of any type are assembled although a new type of intranuclear core-like structure was observed in thin sections by electron microscopy. Hexon polypeptides (120K) are synthesized as demonstrated by SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, but immunofluorescence, immunodiffusion and sucrose velocity gradient analyses show that no hexon capsomeres (360K) are assembled. Similarly, fiber polypep-tides are synthesized normally, but the immunological and sedimentation properties of fiber are abnormal. This mutant failed to complement Ad and ts mutants from several differ-ent complementation groups and also inhibited the growth of wild type (WT) virus. The rate of protein synthesis was depressed in both ts48 and ts48 plus WT infected cells. From these data, it was concluded that ts48 may be a unique, trans-dominant mutation. Preliminary mapping experiments place the ts48 mutation site within the 100K polypeptide gene.