title: Retinoic acid treatment of human neuroblastoma cells is associated with decreased N-myc expression.
abstract: Cells from human neuroectodermal tumors (retinoblastoma and neuroblastoma) and from neuroblastoma cell lines express a gene, N-myc, which is frequently amplified in these tumors. We report here that N-myc mRNA content is markedly decreased in cells of a neuroblastoma cell line (LA-N-5) following differentiation induced with retinoic acid. Exposure of the cells to retinoic acid induced morphologic changes consistent with neuronal differentiation, and led to a 75% decrease in expression of N-myc mRNA. These results suggest that N-myc expression is intimately related to an undifferentiated phenotype in neuroblastoma cells, and support other studies which relate N-myc expression to the malignant phenotype in neuroblastoma tumors.
mesh_terms: D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000187:drug effects; D002460:Cell Line; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000187:drug effects; D006801:Humans; D009447:Neuroblastoma / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*; D009857:Oncogenes / Q000187:drug effects*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm / Q000378:metabolism; D014212:Tretinoin / Q000494:pharmacology*
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm; D014212:Tretinoin