The DNA-bindihg protein (DBP) encoded by human adenoviruses is a multifunctional polypeptide which plays a central iole in regulating the expression of the viral genes. To gain a better understanding of the relationships between the various functions provided by IBP, an extensive collection of DBP mutants is essential. To this end we have constructed several permissive human cell lines which contain and express the DBP gene at high levels to allow propagation of otherwise lethal, nonrecoverable mutants of DBP. Because DB3P is totic to human cells, cell lines were constructed by using a vector in which the DBP gene is under the control of the dexamethasone-inducible promoter of the mouse mammary tumor virus. The low basal levels of DBP synthesis in the absence of dexamethasone allows isolation and propagation of these cells. Addition of dexamethasone enhances DBP production 50-to 200-fold, and within 8 h its synthesis fromb the single integrated copy of the chimeric gene is 5 to 15% of that observed during peak DBP synthesis in infected human cells in which hundreds of copies of the DBP gene serve as templates. At the nonpermissive temperature, adenovirus mutants with ts lesions in the DBP gene replicate their DNAs, express their late genes, and form infectious viral particles in these DBP+ cell lines but not in the parental HeLa cells.A number of multifunctional proteins in euearyotes have been defined by,a combination of genetic and biochemical studies. One of the best characterized of these is the simian virus 40 (SV40) large T antigen, which exhibits separate functional domains as discerned by mapping of sets of mutations which alter one but not another of the various protein functions.The human adenovirus 72-kilodalton DNA-binding protein (DBP) also plays several independent roles during the infectious cycle of this virus. Several mutants with temperature sensitive (tsj alterations in the DBP have been indispensable in defining several of the functions of this protein. The ts alterations at the nonpermissive temperature diminish the single-strand, DNA-binding activity of the protein in vitro (52) and inhibit DNA replication in vivo (13, 47, 53) and in vitro (20). Normal turn-off of viral early genes during the late phase of the lytic cycle is also disrupted at the nonpermissive temperature in cells infected with the ts mutant (6,9,10,37,38). The DBP directly affects early gene turn-off as well as DNA replication, since inhibition of viral DNA synthesis with either drugs or ts lesions in other viral early genes does not affect early gene expression (9, 10). In addition, at the nonpermissive temperatui*, the ts mutants transform rat cells in culture with an enhanced frequency compared with wild-type (wt) virus (16,54).A second class of mutants which greatly enhance the ability of this human virus to grow in monkey cells defines yet a second set of functions of DBP (1,26,29). In monkey cells infected with wt human adenovirus, the viral early genes are properly expressed (3), and viral DNA replication occurs no...