Characterization of the oncogene (erb) of avian erythroblastosis virus and its cellular progenitor

Avian erythroblastosis virus (AEV) induces primarily erythroblastosis when injected intravenously into susceptible chickens. In vitro, the hematopoietic target cells for transformation are the erythroblasts. Occasional sarcomas are also induced by intramuscular injection, and chicken or quail fibroblasts can be transformed in vitro. The transforming capacity of AEV was shown to be associated with the presence of a unique nucleotide sequence denoted erb in its genomic RNA. Using a simplified procedure, we prepared radioactive complementary DNA (cDNAaev) representative of the erb sequence at a high yield. Using a cDNAaev excess liquid hybridization technique adapted to defective retroviruses, we determined the complexity of the erb sequence to be 3,700 +/- 370 nucleotides. AEV-transformed erythroblasts, as well as fibroblasts, contained two polyadenylated viral mRNA species of 30 and 23S in similar high abundance (50 to 500 copies per cell). Both species were efficiently packaged into the virions. AEV-transformed erythroblasts contained additional high-molecular-weight mRNA species hybridizing with cDNAaev and cDNA5' but not with cDNA made to the helper leukosis virus used (cDNArep). The nature and the role, if any, of these bands remain unclear. The erb sequence had its counterpart in normal cellular DNA of all higher vertebrate species tested, including humans and fish (1 to 2 copies per haploid genome in the nonrepetitive fraction of the DNA). These cellular sequences (c-erb) were transcribed at low levels (1 to 2 RNA copies per cell) in chicken and quail fibroblasts, in which the two alleged domains of AEV-specific sequences corresponding to the 75,000- and 40,000-molecular-weight proteins seemed to be conserved phylogenetically and transcribed at similar low rates.