Prolactin-deficient variants of GH3 rat pituitary tumor cells: linked expression of prolactin and another hormonally responsive protein in GH3 cells

GH3 cells normally synthesize and secrete two pituitary polypeptide hormones, prolactin and growth hormone. From an ethyl methane sulfonate-mutagenized population, prolactin low-producing variants have been isolated at a frequency near 20%. Intracellular prolactin synthesis in the variants was reduced 40- to 100-fold compared to wild-type cells while growth hormone synthesis varied less than 2-fold. This decrease was paralleled by a decrease in intracellular preprolactin mRNA. Although reduced, prolactin synthesis was still repressible by glucocorticoids. There was a coordinate loss of expression of p21, a thyroid and glucocorticoid hormone-regulated protein, in GH3 cells, whereas the synthesis and regulation of other hormonally responsive proteins were unimpaired in the variants. Since p21 expression was coordinately regained in a high-producing prolactin revertant cell, expression of the two proteins is tightly coupled in GH3 cells. The stability of the low-producing phenotype differed among variants. One (B2) gave rise to revertants at about 20% frequency even after two rounds of subcloning, whereas another (B3) was more stable in that only 1 weak revertant was found in 47 subclones. The reversion frequency of B3 cells was also measured at less than 0.5%. Unmutagenized GH3 cells were phenotypically stable in that no prolactin-deficient variant was found among 57 subclones. Since variants were ony found after ethyl methane sulfonate mutagenesis, the DNA alkylating agent appears to have promoted an epigenetic change in pituitary gene expression.