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. 1982 Jun;42(3):773–779. doi: 10.1128/jvi.42.3.773-779.1982

Isolation and characterization of c-myc, a cellular homolog of the oncogene (v-myc) of avian myelocytomatosis virus strain 29.

B Vennstrom, D Sheiness, J Zabielski, J M Bishop
PMCID: PMC256910  PMID: 6284994

Abstract

The chicken genome contains nucleotide sequences homologous to transforming genes (oncogenes) of a number of avian retroviruses. We have isolated chicken DNA (c-myc) that is homologous to the oncogene (v-myc) of the avian myelocytomatosis virus MC29 and have compared the structures of the cellular and viral genes. Results from restriction endonuclease mapping of c-myc and from analysis of heteroduplexes between the DNAs of the cellular and viral genes show that c-myc is homologous to 1,500 nucleotides in v-myc DNA. This homologous region is interrupted in c-myc by an intron-like sequence of 1,100 nucleotides which is absent from v-myc. Nuclear RNA from normal chicken cells contains at least five species of transcripts from c-myc ranging from 2.5 to 6.5 kilobases in length. By contrast, cytoplasm contains only the 2.5-kilobase c-myc RNA. These features of the c-myc gene and its nuclear transcripts are characteristic of normal cellular genes and suggest that the myc gene is of cellular rather than viral origin. The exons in c-myc may define two functional domains in the gene and may therefore facilitate the dissection of the different oncogenic potentials of the MC29 virus.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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