Variant lines of mouse kidney cells transformed by an SV40tsA mutant with growth properties of wild-type transformed cells at nonpermissive temperature.

MKSA207 cells, a BALB/c mouse kidney line transformed by a tsA mutant of SV40, are temperature-dependent for the expression of the 'standard transformed phenotype'. At the permissive temperature (33.5 degrees C), the mKSA207 cells resembled wild-type (wt) SV40 transformants; they contained the intranuclear SV40 T antigen, grew to high saturation density in monolayer culture in either 10% or 0.5% serum, and also in methylcellulose suspension culture and became multinucleate in cytochalasin B. At the nonpermissive temperature (39.8 degrees C), the mKSA207 cells lost some of their transformed properties; they grew only to low density in 10% serum, hardly grew at all in 0.5% serum or in methylcellulose suspension culture, and remained mono- or binucleate in cytochalasin B. At 40 degrees C in low serum, mKSA207 cells lost the intranuclear T antigen and when fed 10% serum at 39.8 degrees C, accumulated large amounts of T antigen in the cytoplasm. Derivatives of mKSA207 have been selected at 39.8 degrees C in liquid medium and methylcellulose suspension culture. The heat adapted lines, like wt SV40 transformants, exhibited the standard transformed phenotype at both 33.5 and 39.8 degrees C. It is unlikely that acquisition of temperature-independence for the transformed phenotype was due to reversion of the tsA gene to wild-type because the heat-adapted cell lines displayed the cytoplasmic T antigen at 39.8 degrees C, characteristic of the parental mKSA207 cells and SV40 rescued from one of the heat-adapted lines was temperature sensitive for growth. The T antigen levels (complement fixation units per 10(6) cells) of heat-adapted lines grown at 39.8 degrees C were comparable to those of mKSA207 cells grown at 33.5 or 39.8 degrees C.