In our previous studies, the TR4 orphan nuclear receptor (TR4) has been demonstrated to suppress retinoic acid (RA)-induced transactivation via a negative feedback control mechanism and in situ analysis showed that TR4 is extensively expressed in mouse brain, especially in regions where the cells are proliferating. To further study the potential roles of TR4 during cell differentiation, a tetracycline-inducible system with anti-sense TR4 in teratocarcinoma P19 cell lines was generated to analyze the retinoic acid-induced differentiation of these cells. The results indicated that the expression of TR4 reduced by doxycycline anti-sense TR4 would alter the retinoic acid-induced differentiation pathway that results in the changes of cell morphology and cell cycle profile. Unexpectedly, our data further indicated that the RA-induced apoptosis, judging by DNA fragmentation, could also be altered by the induction of anti-sense TR4. Together, these findings provide the first in vivo evidence that an orphan nuclear receptor, such as TR4, may play major roles in the RA-mediated apoptosis or differentiation in P19 cells. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.