Endogenous retrovirus polypeptides linked to oncogenic transformation

An isolated polynucleotide comprising:

• (a) the nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:
• 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 38, 40, and 42;
• (b) a fragment of at least 7 nucleotides of the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO:
• 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 38 or 40;
• (c) a nucleotide sequence having at least 90% identity to the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO:
• 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 38 or 40;
• or
• (d) the complement of (a), (b) or (c),
• wherein the polynucleotide or its complement encodes an expression product produced by a splicing event in which the 5′ region and start codon of the env coding region of a HML-2 are joined to a downstream coding region in the reading frame +2 relative to that of env.

An isolated polynucleotide comprising:

• (a) the nucleotide sequence encoding a polypeptide having an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:
• 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 39, 41, 43, 66 to 67, 68 and 78 to 277;
• (b) a fragment of at least 7 nucleotides of the nucleotide sequence of (a);
• (c) a nucleotide sequence having at least 90% identity to the nucleotide sequence of (a);
• or
• (d) the complement of (a), (b) or (c),
• wherein the polynucleotide or its complement encodes an expression product produced by a splicing event in which the 5′ region and start codon of the env coding region of a HML-2 are joined to a downstream coding region in the reading frame +2 relative to that of env.