Phenotypic and morphological characterization of neuroblastoma cells constitutively expressing B-myb.

B-myb gene is expressed in neuroblastoma cells and down-regulated during differentiation. We used B-myb-transfected LAN-5 cells, which constitutively express high level of B-myb, to detect changes at phenotypic and morphological levels in basal and differentiation conditions. Our results demonstrate that the overexpression of B-myb markedly affects the cytoskeletal composition, the pattern of neurotransmitter enzymes and the extracellular matrix expression. In general, B-myb transfected neuroblastoma cells show a broad potentiality without a direction toward a specific neuroectodermal differentiation pathway. On the other hand, we confirm inhibition of the neuronal differentiation upon retinoic acid (RA) treatment of B-myb transfected cells. Furthermore, the ultrastructural analyses are supportive of a change in the metabolism in B-myb transfected cell treated with RA. Our data suggest that B-myb expression is compatible with an early phase of differentiation of neuroectodermal cells, but must be down-regulated for the completion of the differentiative programme.