Transition between isozymic forms of enolase during in vitro differentiation of neuroblastoma cells-II.

An analysis of enolase expression during differentiation of neuroblastoma clones in homogeneous culture is presented. The enolases expressed in these neuroblast-like cells are identical to those of mouse brain with respect to the examined properties. Our biochemical investigation has premitted us to demonstrate formally that neuroblastoma cells undergo a transition from the embryonic ?? form to the neuronal ?? form and contain both enolases as well as the ?? hybrid form during maturation. These results suggest that the same phenomenon must exist in vivo for neuroblasts. In neuroblastoma cells, an increase in both ?? and ?? neuron specific enolases is related to cell maturation and expression of the ?? form precedes that of the ?? form during differentiation. Modulation of neuronal enolase activities is similar in the various conditions of differentiation studied and appears not to be necessarily related with morphological differentiation, although concomitant with an arrest of cell division. The evolution of specific neuronal enolases in neuroblastoma cells parallels that observed in vivo, in brain from embryonic day 15 to post-natal day 7. Moreover, at least one treatment (dimethylsulfoxide) causes an important decrease in the high specific ?? activity of these cells as occurs in vivo. This enolase can therefore also be considered as a biochemical marker for neuroblastoma maturation. As observed with other markers and other cell types, neuroblastoma cells in culture express an immature biochemical differentiation of the enolase isozymes.