myc products induce the expression of catecholaminergic traits in quail neural crest-derived cells

The avian myelocytomatosis virus strain MC29 v-myc oncogene transforms a wide panel of avian cells in vitro and either blocks or maintains differentiation, depending on the cell type. In the present work, we have investigated the effect of this oncogene on the differentiation of early embryonic cells, neural crest cells, grown in vitro. We report that the MC29 v-myc gene product induces a strong cellular proliferation of 2-day quail neural crest with the appearance of catecholaminergic traits. Other v-myc as well as the c-myc gene products also trigger this phenotype. Retroviruses carrying some other oncogenes do not elicit this phenotypic expression, although they activate cell multiplication. Thus, our results indicate that myc gene products induce (directly or indirectly) a differentiated phenotype in a subpopulation of neural crest cells.