A virus-induced non-virion antigen specific for transformation at the surface of RSV-transformed fibroblasts

Reported here are studies on the antigenic composition of hamster fibroblasts transformed in vitro by RSV mutants, either defective for the synthesis of envelope glycoproteins (env-) or temperature-sensitive for the ability to transform the host cell (ts). It was found that these cells expressed at their surface a tumor-specific antigen with the following properties: (1) it is expressed at the surface of hamster cells transformed by RSV but not by unrelated RNA or DNA oncogenic viruses; (2) it is expressed by RSV-transformed cells of different animal species; (3) it is not one of the known structural virion proteins; (4) in the temperature-sensitive mutant-transformed cells its expression correlates with the expression of the transforming gene.