Correlation of V-src gene amplification with the tumorigenic phenotype in a Syrian hamster embryo cell line.

A preneoplastic cell line (10W) isolated after treatment of Syrian hamster embryo cells with asbestos was cotransfected with pSV2-neo DNA and Rous sarcoma virus DNA. Six of these colonies contained v-src DNA; however, none of the six initially expressed v-src RNA. Five of the clones failed to grow in soft agar (frequency, less than 10(-6)). One clone (61) grew in soft agar, but with a low frequency. Three of the clones (41, 61, and 62) were tumorigenic in nude mice and three were nontumorigenic. Cells cloned from soft agar or established from tumor explants expressed the v-src gene. The gene copy number of v-src, which was three to 10 in the original neoR clones, was increased approximately 10-fold in the soft agar-derived cell clones and tumor-derived cell lines. Cytogenetic analyses indicated that cells with amplified v-src contained double minute chromosomes. The results suggest that gene amplification influences the expression of the transfected oncogene and is a mechanism which can overcome the initial suppression of transcription of the v-src oncogene in the 10W cell line.