Efficient expression of tum- antigen P91A by transfected subgenic fragments.

Mutagen treatment of mouse P815 tumor cells produces immunogenic mutants that express new transplantation antigens (tum- antigens) recognized by cytolytic T cells. The gene encoding tum- antigen P91A comprises 12 exons and a mutation located in exon 4 is responsible for the production of a new antigenic peptide. Transfection experiments showed that the expression of the antigen could be transferred not only by the entire gene but also by gene segments comprising only the mutated exon and parts of the surrounding introns. This was observed with subgenic regions that were not cloned in expression vectors. Antigen expression did not require the integration of the transfected gene segment into a resident P91A gene by homologous recombination. It also occurred when the subgenic segment was transfected without the usual selective gene, which comprises an eucaryotic promoter, and also without plasmid sequences, which are known to contain weak promoters. When a stop codon was introduced at the beginning of exon 4, the expression of the antigen was maintained and evidence was obtained that an ATG codon located in this region served as initiation site for the translation of the antigenic peptide. But we have not obtained evidence indicating that antigenic peptides are direct translation products rather than degradation products of entire proteins.