C-myc transcript is induced in rat liver at a very early stage of regeneration or by cycloheximide treatment.

In rats, partial hepatectomy induces reasonably synchronized DNA replication in the remaining liver after approximately 20 h. Events occurring during the earlier stages of liver regeneration are of interest because they may tell us how cells in vivo respond when they move from a differentiated resting state (G0 phase) to a proliferative state. We report here that the expression of the c-myc oncogene is increased up to 10-15-fold of the normal level within 1-3 h after partial hepatectomy. This expression begins to decrease rapidly after 4 h and has returned to less than double the normal level after 8 h, at which time replicative DNA synthesis has still not begun. A still larger increase in c-myc transcription (approximately 600-fold) is observed in the liver when protein synthesis is inhibited by an injection of cycloheximide. These findings suggest the existence of a short-lived protein that is synthesized soon after partial hepatectomy, and which suppresses the expression of c-myc.