Total cellular RNAs from a variety of fresh and culture-derived human hematopoietic neoplastic cell types at various stages of differentiation and human sarcoma, carcinoma, melanoma, and glioblastoma cell lines were enriched for poly(A)-containing sequences, fractionated by gel electrophoresis, and blot hybridized to a cloned DNA probe containing the transforming sequences (v-amv) of avian myeloblastosis virus (AMV), a virus known to cause myeloid leukemias in chickens. Expression of RNA sequences homologous to AMV was detected in all immature my-eloid and lymphoid T cells in addition to the single erythroid cell line examined, but not in mature T cells or in B cells, including lymphoblast cell lines derived from patients with Burkitt lym-phoma. In addition, induction of the cell line HL60, a promyelo-cytic leukemia line, to differentiate with dimethyl sulfoxide or reti-noic acid resulted in a reduction of the level of expression of the human cellular gene c-amy homologous to v-amy. There was no detectable c-amv mRNA in any of the solid tumor cell lines examined. Thus, expression of the human c-amy gene could be correlated with the stage ofdifferentiation ofdifferent hematopoietic cell types determined by morphologic and marker studies. Expression ofc-amy could not be correlated with the extent ofmethylation in HL60 and in HL60 induced to differentiate with dimethyl sulfoxide.