Activation of the SV40 late promoter: direct effects of T antigen in the absence of viral DNA replication.

We have examined the activation of the SV40 late promoter by inserting the late promoter and the viral origin of replication into chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) transient expression vectors. Very little late promoter activity was detected in CV-1 cells, compared with high activity in COS cells, in which replication occurs due to endogenous T antigen. Nonreplicative counterparts of these plasmids, containing a mutated origin of replication, produced significantly more late promoter activity in COS cells than any of the plasmids in CV-1 cells. When plasmids were cotransfected into CV-1 cells with a plasmid that supplies T antigen, the nonreplicative plasmid displayed 30% of the activity of the replicative plasmid. Using mutant T antigens unable to replicate viral DNA, late promoter activation occurred only with mutant T antigens that retain DNA binding activity. These results demonstrate that T antigen can substantially stimulate late promoter activity directly and independent of viral DNA replication.