A variant of CRPV DNA preferentially maintained as a plasmid in NIH 3T3 cells and characterization of its transcripts in nude mouse tumors.

Rabbit and human papillomaviruses are strictly epitheliotropic and their DNA replicates extrachromosomally in benign lesions (warts) of their natural host. Their tissue and host specificity is thought to be genetically controlled and may account for the inefficiency in transforming heterologous cells. In our hands, CRPV DNA did not induce foci in NIH 3T3 cells and in cotransfections with a selectable marker only integrated DNA was found. The viral DNA appeared to be transcriptionally inactive since no transcripts could be detected and in cells were not tumorigenic for nude mice. In contrast to these results a spontaneously derived CRPV variant DNA was able to replicate extrachromosomally and a majority of focus-derived cell lines were tumorigenic for nude mice. In nude mouse tumors the variant DNA remained exclusively extrachromosomal and viral transcripts were detected. The sizes of the major transcripts were 2.0 and 1.3 kb and this suggested that E6 and E7 were expressed. The situation in rabbit tissue was different; both variant and wild-type DNA were maintained extrachromosomally. The extrachromosomal maintenance of the variant but not of wild-type DNA in mouse cells suggests that the variant lacks sequences which may play a role in the host and the tissue restriction of CRPV. The deletion in the variant DNA was located in the late region and included most or all of L1 and a carboxy terminal segment of L2. A second deletion eliminated some pBR322 sequences.