Expression of differentiated functions in hepatoma cell hybrids. I. Tyrosine aminotransferase in hepatoma-fibroblast hybrids.

The inducible enzyme tyrosine aminotransferase (TAT) has been investigated in hybrids between rat hepatoma cells and mouse fibroblasts. In the latter the TAT baseline activity is low, and in the presence of steroids does not change. By contrast, the hepatoma cells have high TAT activity, and this activity increases by a factor of 4-6 in the presence of steroids. The hybrid cells, like the fibroblasts, have low TAT activity and are not inducible. Heat inactivation curves demonstrate that the hybrid cells contain both parental forms of TAT, and therefore contain the parental genes specifying the enzyme. The presence in the hybrids of detectable rat TAT and the total absence of its inducibility suggest that a second gene is involved in the regulation of TAT inducibility, and that this gene is not expressed in the hybrids.