IDENTIFICATION OF A VARIABLE REGION AT THE CARBOXY-TERMINUS OF SV40 LARGE T-ANTIGEN

The entire early regions of three human isolates of simian Virus 40 (S V40), as well as two laboratory strains recovered from monkeys, were s equenced. The early coding region of each isolate contains a number of nucleotide differences when compared to the reference strain SV40-776 . These differences result in some changes in the predicted amino acid sequence of the unique region of small t-antigen and in the carboxy ( C) terminus of large T-antigen. The amino acid sequence of the remaind er of large T-antigen was absolutely conserved among all isolates. Thu s, SV40 large T-antigen contains a variable domain at the C-terminal e nd of the molecule. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.