Nucleotide Sequence of Rous Sarcoma Virus

We present the 9312 nucleotide sequence of the Prague C (Pr-C) strain of Rous sarcoma virus (RSV). A comparison of known protein sequences with the nucleotide sequence allows assignment of the coding regions for the gag, pol, env and src genes. The gag gene is terminated by an amber stop codon and is contained within a different reading frame than is the pol gene. The pol and env genes overlap. The sequences surrounding the src gene in the Pr-C and Schmidt-Ruppin (SR-A) strains of RSV have been compared, and they reveal that an element, E, of approximately 153 nucleotides is present on the 3' side of the src gene in Pr-C, and on the 5' side in SR-A. We hypothesize that E was part of a duplicated region of over 250 nucleotides flanking the src gene in an ancestral RSV, and that differential deletion of one copy of E led to its positional difference in Pr-C and SR-A.