Oncoviral DNAs induce transposition of endogenous mobile elements in the genome of Drosophila melanogaster.

Previously, we have shown that particles of Rous sarcoma virus or cloned fragments of RSV cDNA as well as DNA of oncogenic simian adenovirus Sa7, injected into the polar plasm of early Drosophila melanogaster embryos, were able to induce, with high frequency, unstable visible mutations in different groups of genetic loci. The genetic instability of the recovered mutations, i.e., their ability to revert to normal state or to generate new mutant alleles at the affected locus, was manifest in mutant lines through several generations. The molecular analysis undertaken in this study of the yellow-scute loci region which is highly sensitive to the microinjected Sa7 DNA, and of the white locus, that frequently mutates under the influence of RSV cDNA, clearly shows that the induced mutations and reversions are accompanied by insertion/excision of endogenous mobile elements. This conclusion is confirmed by in situ hybridization experiments which demonstrate that the adenovirus DNA is able to change, though with different efficiency, the chromosomal localization of certain Drosophila retrotransposons. These results partially elucidate the molecular mechanism of the genetic instability in D. melanogaster induced by microinjection of oncoviruses into early embryos, implying that is results from mobilization of endogenous transposons which play the role of insertional elements directly causing unstable mutations.