Abelson murine leukemia virus transformation-defective mutants with impaired P120-associated protein kinase activity.

Several transformation-defective (td) mutants of Abelson murine leukemia virus (AbLV) are described. Cells nonproductively infected with such mutants exhibited a high degree of growth contact inhibition, failed to form colonies in soft agar, lacked rescuable transforming virus, and were as susceptible as uninfected control cells to transformation by wild-type (wt) AbLV pseudotype virus. In addition, each of several td AbLV nonproductively infected cell clones analyzed was found to be nontumorigenic in vivo. Biochemical analysis of td mutant AbLV-infected clones revealed levels of expression of the major AbLV translational product, P120, and a highly related 80,000-Mr AbLV-encoded protein, P80, at concentrations analogous to those in wt AbLV-transformed cells. Although the AbLV-specific 120,000-Mr polyproteins expressed in td mutant AbLV-infected clones were indistinguishable from those in wt AbLV-transformed lines with respect to molecular weight and [35S]methionine tryptic peptide composition, they each differed from wt AbLV P120 in their patterns of post-translational phosphorylation. A previously described AbLV-associated protein kinase activity is shown to recognize as substrate a major tyrosine-specific acceptor site(s) contained within a single well-resolved tryptic peptide common to both AbLV P120 and P80. In vitro [gamma-32P]ATP-mediated labeling of this phosphorylation site was reduced to below detectable levels in td mutant nonproductively infected cell clones. These findings establish that the AbLV-encoded polyprotein P120 and its associated protein kinase activity are involved in AbLV tumorigenesis.