Transforming genes of carcinomas and neuroblastomas introduced into mouse fibroblasts

Abstract

We have previously demonstrated that DNA of mouse fibroblasts transformed by 3-methylcholanthrene (3-MC) induced foci of transformed cells when applied to monolayer cultures of NIH3T3 cells, which indicates that at least a part of this phenotype is encoded in DNA sequences. However, our conclusions were confined to the effects of DNAs of 3-MC-transformed mouse fibroblasts on recipient NIH3T3 cells, also of mouse fibroblast origin. To elucidate this phenomenon further, we have prepared DNAs from a series of mouse and non-mouse tumour lines of non-fibroblastic origin and investigated whether tumour transforming genes can act across tissue and species barriers to transform NIH3T3 cells. We find that DNAs obtained from human, rabbit and mouse bladder carcinoma lines, a lung carcinoma line and rat neuroblastoma and mouse glioma lines, are able to induce transformation of NIH3T3 cells on transfection.