Using immunofluorescence and immunoblotting techniques, we have examined the composition of the nuclear lamina in murine plasmacytoma cells, MPC-11, exposed to the phorbol ester TPA as well as in two cell lines devoid of cytoplasmic intermediate filament proteins, the human adrenal cortex carcinoma-derived cells SW-13 and the clone C6-M-D4 derived from the rat glial cell line C6. Our results show that the inhibition of proliferation and the induction of vimentin synthesis observed in TPA-treated MPC-11 populations are not paralleled by changes in the lamin complement of these cells, which contain lamin B but lack lamins A and C. Furthermore, the analysis performed on SW-13 and C6-M-D4 cell lines clearly demonstrates that mammalian somatic cells display considerable variations in lamin expression and indicates that lamin B may be the only lamin species constitutively expressed in mammalian cells.