Phosphoprotein pp38, coded for by the BamHI-H fragment of the Marek's disease herpesvirus (MDV) genome is expressed in tumor cells and tumor cell lines. pp38 is associated with two other phosphoproteins, pp41 and pp24, and can be detected in a small percentage of tumor cells by indirect immunofluorescence assays (IIFA). The importance of MDV ICP4 for the regulation of pp38 expression was examined in the following MSB-1-derived cell lines stably transfected with the selection plasmid pNL1 [MDCC-CU221 (CU221)], pNL1 and the BamHI-A fragment of MDV DNA containing ICP4 (CU224), MDV ICP4 inserted in antisense direction in the eukaryotic expression vector pXT1 (CU222), or ICP4 in sense direction in pXT1 (CU223) or cotransfected with pNL1 and EcoRI-linearized BamHI-A MDV DNA (CU225, -237, -243, -244). IIFA analysis showed that CU223 had a markedly increased expression of pp38, while CU224 had a slightly increased expression. No changes were noted in CU221 or CU222, while expression of pp38 was decreased in CU225, -237, -243, and -244. Radioimmunoprecipitation assays demonstrated that the expression of all three phosphoproteins was enhanced in CU223. Steady-state transcriptional analysis showed that CU223 had increased levels of pp38-specific (1.9 and 3.3 kb) and ICP4-specific (10.0 kb) transcripts.