The purpose of the studies in this project is to demonstrate the effects of selected oncogenes in appropriate rodent hosts. In addition, the mechanisms of malignant transformation are analyzed by in vitro and in vivo correlations. We have found that transformation of the full-length erbB-2 genome converts benign human breast epithelium to a low-grade neoplastic culture. The transformation is more malignant if truncated or mutated cDNA is used. Nontumorigenic murine hematopoietic cells can be transformed to malignant transplantable tumor lines by transfection with the oncogenes erbB, fms, abl and PDGFR/sis.
