Transformed Mammalian Cells Secrete Specific Proteins and Phosphoproteins

We have examined the proteins secreted into the growth medium by normal and transformed cells. Transformed cell lines from several mammalian species all secrete proteins in the 58,000 dalton molecular weight range. These proteins are all immunologically related and are secreted at low levels or not at all by the parental normal cell lines. Secretion of the 58K proteins occurs with either DNA or RNA virus transformation and with spontaneous transformation. The transformed cells also secrete phosphoproteins in the same size range, but these are immunologically distinct from the 58K proteins mentioned above. The sizes of the phosphoproteins are species-specific and unrelated to the transforming virus. Incubation of conditioned media from transformed cell cultures with gamma-32P-ATP labels phosphoproteins of the same sizes, indicating the presence in the media of both protein kinase and substrate. All three properties (58K protein, phosphoprotein, in vitro phosphorylation) are closely correlated with transformation in cells transformed by temperature-sensitive viruses. The biological implications of these results remain unknown, but the results may be relevant to recent data on the (phospho)proteins and protein kinase encoded by RNA tumor viruses and the molecular basis of the transformed phenotype.