Construction and Characterization of a Hybrid Mouse Mammary Tumor Virus/Murine Leukemia Virus-Based Retroviral Vector

Mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV)-based vectors are characterized by low titers. In an effort to transfer MMTV-specific regulation of gene expression to a more efficient murine leukemia virus (MLV) vector, we have replaced the complete 3′ U3 region of MLV with the complete U3 region of MMTV. Virus titers were not significantly affected by this modification, there was no impairment of reverse transcription and integration, and after infection of cells, the MMTV promoter is duplicated and translocated to the 5′ long terminal repeat, resulting in glucocorticoid-regulatable RNA expression.