Bovine papillomavirus type 1 (BPV-1) and its cloned full-length DNA can transform rodent cells in vitro, and the viral DNA persists as an extrachromosomal multicopy plasmid in these transformed cells. Previous studies have identified at least five discrete viral RNAs that are expressed in BPV-1 transformed cells and have shown that these transcripts share a 3' coterminus. To further define the structure of these RNAs and to characterize the functions of individual viral transcripts, we constructed a cDNA library with mRNA from BPV-1-transformed mouse C127 cells using an Okayama and Berg plasmid. From a library of 105 independent clones, 200 BPV-1 specific clones were isolated and characterized. Sequence analysis has revealed differential splicing patterns for the mRNA species in BPV-1 transformed cells. In conjunction with the open reading frames (ORFs) deduced from the BPV-1 DNA sequence, it is possible to predict the structure of the potential encoded proteins. The vector used to generate these cDNA clones contains mammalian cell transcriptional regulatory elements, facilitating their functional characterization. We have identified two distinct classes of cDNA clones that can each independently transform mouse C127 cells. One class of cDNA clones contains the-E2 ORF intact and the second contains the E6 ORF intact. These two putative viral functions appear to act synergistically in transforming mouse C127 cells in vitro.fied several regions of BPV-1 genome that influence the expression of the viral transforming functions (9-12). Deletion mutants affecting the E2 ORF are significantly impaired in their ability to transform mouse C127 cells, suggesting that the putative E2 protein is an important transforming protein (9). The expression of E2 alone, however, is not sufficient for the fully transformed phenotype. Deletion mutagenesis studies map an additional function that is critical for the fully transformed phenotype to the region between the Hpa I site (base 1) and the Sma I site (base 945) (9). These previous studies did not distinguish whether these two distinct regions of the viral genome encode separate proteins or whether they contain exons that are spliced together at the level of mRNA to generate a single transforming protein.To further define the structure of the mRNAs in transformed cells and to characterize the functions encoded by individual viral transcripts, we constructed a cDNA library using mRNA from BPV-1-transformed mouse cells. The vector used for cDNA cloning contains the simian virus 40 (SV40) early promoter, the SV40 late region introns, and the SV40 late region polyadenylylation site, allowing expression of cDNA clones in mouse cells for functional analysis (17). In this study, expression vectors that carried individual cDNA inserts were tested for their ability to transform mouse C127 cells.