Mt. Tuck et al., ELEVATION OF INTERNAL 6-METHYLADENINE MESSENGER-RNA METHYLTRANSFERASEACTIVITY AFTER CELLULAR-TRANSFORMATION, Cancer letters, 103(1), 1996, pp. 107-113
A comparison of internal 6-methyladenine mRNA methyltransferase activi
ty in a variety of cell types demonstrated an 8-15-fold increase as a
result of cellular transformation. Utilizing adenovirus transformed ra
t embryo cells, it was found that the increase in methyltransferase ac
tivity was concomitant with or occurred rapidly after transformation.
An 8-fold increase in activity was observed in the cells isolated from
the transformed foci and remained elevated through subsequent passage
s. The relationship between methyltransferase activity and tumor forma
tion was also investigated. High level expression of the avian ski onc
ogene in mouse L cells causes a reversion of the transformed phenotype
to a non-transformed state, and resulted in a 47% reduction in the sp
ecific activity of the methyltransferase as compared with mock transfe
cted cells.