Mutational analysis of the 3' open reading frames and the splice junction at nucleotide 3225 of bovine papillomavirus type 1.

Functional analysis of the 3' open reading frames (ORFs) of bovine papillomavirus type 1 (BPV-1) has been complicated by the organization of that part of the genome. A region between nucleotides (nt) 3173 and 3551 contains three overlapping ORFs (E2, E3, and E4), as well as a 3' splice junction at nt 3225 which is used by many of the BPV-1 transcripts. To more clearly assign functions to specific ORFs in this region, single-base substitution mutations were generated which introduced translational termination codons into each of the three ORFs; a fourth mutation substituted an A with a C at nt 3223, altering the 3' splice junction consensus sequence from AG to CG. The E3- and the E4-specific mutants were wild type in their abilities to transform susceptible mouse C127 cells, to replicate as stable plasmids, and to trans-activate the E2 conditional enhancer. The E2-specific termination mutant was defective for plasmid replication, transformation, and trans-activation and could not be complemented for efficient transformation of a flat cell line which expressed the full-length E2 gene product. The splice junction mutant was defective for transformation of C127 cells and of a flat cell line expressing the full-length E2 gene product. These data extend previous analyses of the 3' ORFs and suggest that a spliced E2 product is involved in cellular transformation. The splice junction mutant could replicate as a stable plasmid, indicating that there is no absolute requirement in plasmid replication for a viral gene product expressed solely from an mRNA using the 3' splice junction at nt 3225.