Gene activation pathways of nerve growth factor signaling: a minireview.

PC12 rat pheochromocytoma cells provide an excellent model system to study the mechanism of nerve growth factor-induced neuronal differentiation. PC12 cells expressing a dominant inhibitory Ras protein are being used to elucidate the role of this key signal transduction protein in gene activation events accompanying morphological differentiation of these cells. The possible involvement of Ras-dependent protein phosphorylation cascades in NGF-induced gene expression are discussed in this paper.