Fre-2, a locus closely linked to Fv-2, is rearranged in some erythroleukemias induced by Friend murine leukemia virus.

Friend murine leukemia virus (F-MuLV) induces leukemia by integration into the cellular genome, thereby changing the structure of expression of cellular oncogenes. Here we describe a new F-MuLV integration site Fre-2 isolated from splenic DNA of an erythroleukemic animal. This site has been found rearranged in 5 out of 63 additional tumors; however, no F-MuLV proviruses could be detected in the vicinity of the rearrangement sites in these 5 cases. The rearrangements represented closely clustered chromosomal breakpoints, presumably chromosomal translocations. Exons transcribed into differentially spliced mRNAs of 1.9 and 3.7 kb have been found near the breakpoint. No sequences that are homologous to Fre-2 could be found in databases.

Friend murine leukaemia virus is integrated at a common site in most primary spleen tumours of erythroleukaemic animals.

A common proviral integration site was identified and characterized in erythroleukaemias induced by Friend murine leukaemia virus (F-MuLV). Using inverse polymerase chain reaction, we found a proviral integration site common to at least 90% of 20 primary tumours tested. This site was identical to Fli-1, a locus recently reported by others to be rearranged in 75% (9/12) of cell lines established from spleens of erythroleukaemic mice and to code for a member of the ets gene family. Our data suggest that about half of the F-MuLV-induced erythroleukaemias contained more than one cell clone with a proviral integration in Fli-1, with different individual integration sites within Fli-1 in each cell clone. All proviruses were found to be integrated in the same transcriptional orientation with respect to flanking cellular DNA. We discuss these findings in relation to multistage models of neoplasm.