Heterogeneous response to differentiation induction with different polar compounds in a clonal rat rhabdomyosarcoma cell line (BA-HAN-1C).

The clonal rat rhabdomyosarcoma cell line BA-HAN-1C was tested for its susceptibility to differentiation induction with different polar compounds. This cell line is composed of proliferating mononuclear tumour cells, some of which spontaneously fuse to form terminally differentiated postmitotic myotube-like giant cells. Exposure of BA-HAN-1C cells to dimethylsulphoxide (DMSO), hexamethylene bisacetamide (HMBA), sodium butyrate (NaBut) and N-monomethylformamide (NMF) resulted in a significant inhibition of proliferation (P less than 0.001) and in a simultaneous increase in differentiation. The response was most pronounced after exposure to NMF as evidenced by a marked increase in the creatine kinase activity used as a biochemical marker of differentiation (P less than 0.05) and the number of terminally differentiated myotube-like giant cells (P less than 0.001). Furthermore, about 5% of the mononuclear cells exhibited thick and thin myofilaments which were never observed in the mononuclear cells of the control. In contrast, the effects of DMSO, HMBA and NaBut were exclusively confined to a significant increase in biochemical differentiation (P less than 0.05), whereas no increase in morphological differentiation was observed and the number of myotube-like giant cells even significantly (P less than 0.001) decreased. This heterogeneous response to differentiation induction with different polar compounds probably indicates different mechanisms of action and suggests that the induction of biochemical differentiation might be independently regulated from events leading to cell fusion and terminal differentiation.