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Isolation of acutely transforming retroviruses and the characterization of their oncogene products hold great promise for the elucidation of the mechanisms of malignant transformation. Because these viruses have each transduced a cellular gene or gene fragment and, upon infection, express the gene product at a high level, they aid in identifying genes (cellular proto-oncogenes) that have the ability to alter growth control when mutated and/or inappropriately expressed. Viral oncogenes include truncated growth factor receptors, growth factors, protein kinases, GTP-binding proteins, and nuclear proteins (for review, see Bishop 1985; Bishop and Varmus 1985); several of the cellular counterparts to viral oncogenes have been implicated in human tumorigenesis (for review, see Marshall 1985; Bishop 1987). Although not all cellular proto-oncogenes have been demonstrated to be involved in normal growth control, the viral oncogenes have the ability to subvert this tightly regulated process and thereby provide insight into the normal regulatory pathways.
Mayer et al. (Fri,) studied this question.