Abstract
An electroporation technique was employed to study the effect of oncogenes H/ras and c-myc after their short-term expression in the rat pheochromocytoma PC12 cells. It was found that within 6 days after electroporation the mutant T24 H-ras1 gene induced differentiation of PC12 cells whereas the c-myc blocked NGF-induced differentiation. The induction of differentiation by the T24 H-ras gene may suggest a physiological role of the ras gene in cell differentiation as well as in cell proliferation.