We have previously demonstrated in transient expression assay systems that a human multidrug resistance 1 (MDR1) promoter can be directly activated by cytotoxic anticancer agents. In this study, we examined whether the MDR1 promoter could be regulated in response to growth arrest induced by serum starvation. We have established human and rodent cell lines which stably expressed the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene driven by various lengths of the MDR1, the viral thymidine kinase (TK) and the simian virus 40 (SV40) promoters. Serum starvation caused enhanced expression of CAT gene with MDR1 promoter, but not with two viral gene promoters in human cancer KB cells. Hydroxyurea activated the MDR1 promoter, but not TK and SV40 promoters. By contrast, the DNA topoisomerase II inhibitor, etoposide, equally activated the MDR1, TK and SV 40 promoters. Increased CAT gene expression by serum starvation was also specifically observed in stable transfectants of human adrenal SW-13 cell lines, but not in stable transfectants of mouse fibroblast NIH3T3 and adrenal Y-1 cell lines when the human MDR1 promoter-CAT was introduced. Etoposide, however, effectively induced CAT activity in both human and rodent cells. Assays with deletion constructs of the MDR1 promoter showed that serum starvation activated the MDR1 promoter carrying -258 approximately +121 base sequence of the promoter, but not -198 approximately +121 of the promoter. These results suggest that the expression of the MDR1 gene induced by serum starvation is regulated at the transcriptional level in a promoter sequence-specific manner in human cells.