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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1992 May 1;89(9):4042–4046. doi: 10.1073/pnas.89.9.4042

Marek disease virus encodes a basic-leucine zipper gene resembling the fos/jun oncogenes that is highly expressed in lymphoblastoid tumors.

D Jones 1, L Lee 1, J L Liu 1, H J Kung 1, J K Tillotson 1
PMCID: PMC525628  PMID: 1315048

Abstract

Marek disease virus (MDV) is a herpesvirus of chickens that induces T lymphomas within 3 weeks of infection. The short latency and polyclonal nature of MDV-induced tumors have suggested that the virus may encode one or more direct-acting oncogenes. To date, however, no MDV-specific tumor antigens or candidate transforming genes have been demonstrated. In this paper, we report the identification of a MDV gene encoding a protein with homology to the leucine-zipper class of nuclear oncogenes. It also contains a proline-rich domain characteristic of another class of transcription factors. This gene, designated meq, maps to the long repeat of MDV and is one of the few genes that are highly expressed in MDV-induced T-cell tumors. To our knowledge, a herpesvirus gene closely related to the fos/jun family of oncogenes has not been reported previously.

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Selected References

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