Phorbol ester action is independent of viral and cellular src kinase levels.

Treatment of normal chick embryo fibroblasts with phorbol myristate acetate causes those cells to express many of the phenotypic properties of virally transformed cells and also enhances the expression of transformed properties in Rous sarcoma virus-transformed chick embryo fibroblasts. We report here that phorbol myristate acetate has little or no effect on the level of protein kinases encoded by the viral src or endogenous sarc genes.