Tumorigenic transformation of rat FR3T3 fibroblasts carrying an activated myc oncogene requires subsequent mutational events.

Early passage FR3T3 rat cells were co-transfected with a neo resistance gene and pSVc-myc-1, an SV40-driven expression vector carrying an activated murine myc oncogene. Selection in G418 medium produced clones expressing the exogenous myc gene at various levels, with a concomitant loss of expression of the normal c-myc allele. These clones were phenotypically normal, but, in fluctuation tests performed according to Luria and Delbrück (1943) on subcultures independently derived from the same clone, transformed foci appeared as stochastic events with a wide range of fluctuation. These results indicate that expression of the oncogene was not sufficient to induce the appearance of transformed growth properties, and that secondary genetic changes are required, most likely mutations in cellular proto-oncogenes. Within a single clone, independent transformants exhibited different tumorigenic potentials, spanning from high efficiency to no detectable tumor induction, without any clear correlation with their degree of in vitro transformation. Tumors and cell lines established from independent tumors, while maintaining the exogenous myc gene without gross rearrangement of its structure, no longer expressed the oncogene and resumed the expression of the normal allele.