Enzyme induction in a temperature-sensitive cell cycle mutant of Chinese hamster fibroblasts

A temperature-sensitive (ts) cell cycle mutant of Chinese hamster fibroblasts with a block in G1 was investigated. Attention was on the expression of the activity of three enzymes: ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase (SAMDC), and thymidine kinase (TK). ODC and SAMDC activities are normally induced in the middle of, or late in, the G1 phase, while TK activity starts to appear at the G1/S boundary. In the ts mutant released from serum starvation at the nonpermissive temperature (40.8 degrees C), we find no effect on the expression of SAMDC activity, a significantly reduced level of ODC activity compared to the control at the permissive temperature (34 degrees C), and no induction of TK activity. Results presented here and in a previous publication (Landy-Otsuka and Scheffler, '78) suggest that the decrease in ODC activity is due to an effect of the nonpermissive temperature on a post-transcriptional step, possibly a very rapid inactivation of the enzyme. The absence of TK activity, on the other hand, appears to be due to a block in transcription at the nonpermissive temperature.