The Suppressor of forked protein is the Drosophila homolog of the 77K subunit of human cleavage stimulation factor, a complex required for the first step of the mRNA 3'-end-processing reaction, We have shown previously that wild-type su(f) function is required for the accumulation of a truncated su(f) transcript polyadenylated in intron 4 of the gene. This led us to propose a model in which the Su(f) protein would negatively regulate its own accumulation by stimulating 3'-end formation of this truncated su(f) RNA, In this article, we demonstrate this model and show that su(f) autoregulation is tissue specific. The Su(f) protein accumulates at a high level in dividing tissues, but not in nondividing tissues, We show that this distribution of the Su(f) protein results from stimulation by Su(f) of the tissue-specific utilization of the su(f) intronic poly(A) site, leading to the accumulation of the truncated su(f) transcript in nondividing tissues, Utilization of this intronic poly(A) site is affected in a su(f) mutant and restored in the mutant with a transgene encoding wild-type Su(f) protein, These data provide an in vivo example of cell-type-specific regulation of a protein level by poly(A) site choice, and confirm the role of Su(f) in regulation of poly(A) site utilization.