THE 132 BP REPEATS ARE PRESENT IN RNA TRANSCRIPTS FROM 1.8 KB GENE FAMILY OF MAREK DISEASE VIRUS-TRANSFORMED CELLS

Marek's disease virus (MDV) is an oncogenic, lymphotropic herpesvirus of chickens: Loss of its tumourigenic potential is believed to be asso ciated with amplification of the 132 bp repeats from BamHI-D and BamHI -H fragments. We prepared cDNA libraries from RPL1 and MSB1 cell line and from the latter we identified a clone which spanned the 132 bp rep eats within the BamHI-H fragment. By sequencing and Northern blot anal ysis we confirmed the presence of the 132 bp repeats. The analysis by PCR made on the total RNA revealed two 132 bp repeats in MDV transcrip ts from RPL1 and two to three repeats in transcripts from MSB1 cells. These results show that sequences within the 132 bp repeats are transc ribed and are not spliced out as previously reported.