Sodium butyrate affects expression of fibronectin on CHO cells: specific increase in antibody-complement-mediated cytotoxicity.

Cellular fibronectin is expressed only at very low levels on the surface of the spontaneously transformed Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell line, as detected by immunofluorescence studies and confirmed by resistance of CHO cells to complement-mediated lysis in the presence of anti-fibronectin antibody. Treatment of CHO cells with sodium butyrate results in a marked susceptibility to anti-fibronectin complement-mediated killing. Using selected complement-containing sera from rabbits, it is possible to demonstrate that killing of butyrate-treated CHO cells is absolutely and specifically dependent on the presence of antibody to fibronectin. The increased susceptibility of butyrate-treated cells to complement-mediated killing correlates with an increase in cell surface fibronectin detected by immunofluorescence studies. This increased antigen expression should allow the isolation of mutants with altered regulation of fibronectin expression in a cell line of proven value for somatic cell genetic studies.