The mQlecular defect in the nonconditional B-tropic MuLV pol mutant, clone 23 (Gerwin et al., J. Virol. 31:741-751, 1979), has been characterized by recombinant DNA technology. The entire mutant genome was cloned from an EcoRI digest of integrated cellular DNA into bacteriophage A Charon 4A and then subcloned at the EcoRI site of pBR322. NIH-3T3 cells transfected with the plasmid clone, termed pRTM (RTM, reverse transcriptase mutant), reproduced the properties of clone 23 virus-infected cells. In vivo ligation experiments involving cotransfection of subclones of pRTM and wild-type murine leukemia virus localized the defect in the clone 23 genome to an approximately 400-base-pair region in the pol gene between the Sail and XhoI sites.