It has been shown that suppression of cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) expression or its kinase activity is a critical event for the differentiation of hematopoietic and myoblastic cells. To investigate the role of CDK4 during NGF-mediated neuronal differentiation of PC12 cells, we examined the changes in the expression and kinase activity of CDK4, Unexpectedly, both the expression of CDK4 and its kinase activity remained high throughout 10 days of exposure to NGF. Furthermore, constitutive overexpression of the human CDK4 did not inhibit the differentiation. These results suggest that suppression of CDK4 is not required for the NGF-induced neuronal differentiation of PC12 cells. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.