Isolation of temperature-sensitive Abelson virus mutants by site-directed mutagenesis.

Mutants of Abelson virus encoding temperature-sensitive protein-tyrosine kinase (EC 2.7.1.112) were created by site-directed mutagenesis using sequence information from temperature-sensitive mutants of the related v-src oncogene. Expression of these two independent mutations in Escherichia coli resulted in reduced phosphorylation of the mutant proteins at high temperature. Viruses containing one of the mutations induced conditional transformation of both NIH 3T3 and lymphoid cells when expressed in the context of a truncated transforming protein. These results underscore the functional homology between protein-tyrosine kinases and suggest that transfer of mutations within a related gene family may provide a rapid method to create mutants.