Tryptic peptide analyses of polypeptides generated by premature termination of cell-free protein synthesis allow a determination of the Rauscher leukemia virus gag gene order.

Translation of Rauscher murine leukemia virus (R-MuLV) 35S RNA in an mRNA-dependent cell-free protein-synthesizing system yields polypeptides identical to authentic Pr65gag, the R-MuLV gag precursor, and Pr200gag-pol, the precursor to the R-MuLV reverse transcriptase. In addition to these polypeptides, the cell-free product contains a family of polypeptides of less than 65,000 molecular weight which appear to be generated by premature termination of protein synthesis within the viral gag gene. We compared the tryptic maps of several of these less than 65,000-molecular-weight premature termination polypeptides with that of full-size Pr65gag and found a progressive loss of tryptic peptides which could be assigned to known R-MuLV gag proteins. A 40,000-molecular-weight fragment, P40gag, lacked p10 and part of p30, placing p10 at the C terminus pf Pr65gag and p30 ajacent to it. Fragments of 33,000 (P33gag) and 27,000 to 28,000 (P27/28gag) molecular weight showed a successive loss of additional p30 tryptic peptides, but no loss of either p15 or p12. An 18,000-molecular-weight fragment lost p12 but retained p15. These data suggest an R-MuLV gag gene order of NH2-p15-p12-p30-p10-COOH.