Tyrosine kinases have been implicated in the development of the nervous system. To investigate their role, immunoblotting with phosphotyrosine antibodies was used to identify substrates of tyrosine kinases during glial and neuronal differentiation in the rat and mouse. Fourteen prominent phosphotyrosine-containing proteins were detected in oligodendrocyte-type 2 astrocyte (O2A) progenitor cells. When O2A cells differentiated into type 2 astrocytes, a phosphotyrosine-modified protein of 74 kilodaltons (kDa) decreased 15-fold in abundance, and phosphotyrosine-containing proteins of 36-40 kDa declined. When O2A cells differentiated into oligodendrocytes, a prominent 71-kDa phosphotyrosine-modified protein became undetectable. During retinoic acid-induced neuronal differentiation of the mouse embryonal carcinoma cell line P19S101A1 (P19), an 80-kDa phosphotyrosine-containing protein decreased from high levels in the undifferentiated state to undetectable levels after 96 h in aggregation. Retinoic acid treatment also caused a rapid decrease in levels of a 96-kDa phosphotyrosine-containing protein. Cell-cell contact occurring as a result of aggregation resulted in decreases in 130- and 90-kDa phosphotyrosine-containing proteins in both retinoic acid-induced and control cultures. Cultured rat central nervous system cerebral cortical neurons and peripheral nervous system dorsal root ganglion neurons exhibited prominent phosphotyrosine-modified proteins of 90 and 46 kDa the same sizes as those in P19 neurons. The phosphotyrosine-containing proteins involved in the retinoic acid-induced differentiation of P19 cells to neurons were different from those altered in the glial differentiation of O2A cells to astrocytes or oligodendrocytes, indicating that the tyrosine kinase substrates modified during nervous system differentiation may be cell-type-specific.