Infection of a murine T-cell line with a retrovirus carrying c-myc decreases the interleukin-2 cell dependence by a nonautocrine mechanism.

A murine interleukin-2 (IL-2)-dependent T-cell line, CTLL-2, was infected with a retrovirus carrying the mouse c-myc cDNA and the Tn-5 neogene. Transduced cells were selected in the presence of Geneticin sulfate (G418); these cells were shown to express both the endogenous and the transduced c-myc genes. The IL-2 requirement of these cells was then found to be significantly reduced. The cells did not express IL-2 mRNA nor did they produce an activity mitogenic for CTLL-2 cells. This suggests that the reduction of IL-2 dependence observed following retroviral transduction of c-myc is caused by a nonautocrine mechanism.