Induced reversion using human adenovirus

Studies of physically or chemically induced mutability (or revertibility) of viruses have aided the understanding of repair processes both in bacteria and in mammalian cells. Others first showed that UV-irradiated lambda phage underwent far more mutagenesis when infecting UV-irradiated E. coli host cells than when infecting non-irradiated hosts. This finding was indispensable to the concept of S.O.S. or error-prone repair and was, at least in part, responsible for the current interest in the biological and biochemical functions of the E. coli recA gene product and the regulatory system of which it is a part. Work along similar lines in mammalian cells, represents the extension of such research to mammalian cells. Systematic studies of UV-produced mutagenesis or reversion among nuclear-replicating double-stranded DNA mammalian viruses have been reported in SV40, their herpes viruses and adenoviruses. In this chapter the authors describe their methods for adenovirus 5