Presence of a constitutive paracrine beta-interferon in v-mos-bearing nonmalignant reverted cells.

A stable nonmalignant revertant cell line was derived from Moloney murine sarcoma virus-transformed BALB/c cells after long-term cultivation in the presence of murine type I interferon (IFN). These cells gradually established resistance to exogenous IFN and were also seen to contain IFN-dependent proteins. The presence of an endogenous IFN was confirmed by the results of Northern blot analysis and in situ hybridization with an IFN-beta probe, showing that only mRNA specific for IFN-beta- could be found in the uninduced reverted cells.

Interferon inducibility and sensitivity of human teratocarcinoma-derived cell lines.

Three cell lines tera I, tera II, and PA1, derived from human teratocarcinomas were tested for their capacity to produce interferon (IFN) and for their sensitivity to both human IFN-alpha and IFN-beta. When treated with Newcastle disease virus or Sendai virus, or a synthetic polyribonucleotide, poly(rI):poly(rC), tera I cells produced no IFN and the 2',5'-oligoadenylate (2-5A) synthetase enzymatic pathway was not activated, although there was an increase in protein kinase. In contrast, tera II and PA1 cells produced IFN and both enzymatic activities were detected.

Interferon-mediated regulation of myc and Ki-ras oncogene expression in long-term-treated murine viral transformed cells.

Long-term treatment of a murine retroviral-transformed cell line (Ki-Balb) with 50 units/ml of interferon (IFN) resulted in a morphological reversion. The effects of IFN on myc and Ki-ras oncogene expression were examined after 6 months of treatment. mRNA dot and Northern blots hybridization analysis reveal that the expression of c-myc at the RNA level decreases by about fourfold.