Adenovirus tumorigenesis: role of the viral genome in determining tumor morphology.

Adenovirus type 12 transforms the fibroblastic BHK21 (baby hamster kidney) cell line into rounded or cuboidal cells that give rise in hamsters to undifferentiated small cell sarcomas indistinguishable from those induced in newborn hamsters by inoculation of the virus itself. In contrast. cells from this line transformed by polyoma virus retain their fibroblastic morphology and induce fibrosarcomas in hamsters. This suggests that the morphology of tumors induced by the adenovirus-transformed cells from this line may be determined by the viral genome and that such mechanism may also explain the remarkably uniform microscopic appearance which seems to characterize tumors induced in hamsters by direct inoculation of adenovirus type 12.