Avian nephroblastomas induced by a retrovirus (MAV-2) lacking oncogene. I. Construction of MAV-1 and MAV-2 proviral restriction maps and preparation of specific proviral molecular subclones.

A 9.8 kb DNA fragment containing the complete MAV-1 provirus was recloned from the recombinant bacteriophage lambda 311411 (Perbal et al., 1985) into the plasmid pAT153. A detailed and precise restriction map of the obtained clone (pAT-MAV-1) was constructed. From compilation of this map and the known sequence of a variable portion of the MAV-2 env gene was a restriction map of MAV-2 deduced. Knowledge of the detailed pAT-MAV-1 map facilitated the preparation of five specific proviral subclones: pAT-U3 and pUC-U3 (both contain the U3 domain of the proviral LTR, which is MAV-specific and displays no homology with other hitherto known retroviruses including avian endogenous proviruses), pUC-RU5 (containing the R and U5 domains of the proviral LTR), pUC-UT5 (containing untranslated sequences flanking the 5' LTR), and pUC-UT3 (containing untranslated sequences flanking the 3' LTR). Thus tools for analysis of integrated MAV-2 proviruses in nephroblastomas induced by this virus were formed.