The Thy-1 antigen is a cell surface glycoprotein found in neural tissue of all mammalian species so far studied. The distribution and amount of this antigen has been measured on 4 human neuronal and 2 neuroglial cell lines and on fresh tumour cells of neuronal origin. In 3 out of 4 neuronal lines (LAN-1, TR14, CHP 212) more than 90% of cells were Thy-1+, however, LAN-1 cells showed only weak immunofluorescence and bore on average 2.4 times fewer molecules of Thy-1 per cell than those of either TR14 or CHP 212. The mean number of Thy-1 molecules per TR14 cell was shown to be approximately 2.25 x 10(5). In contrast, only 66% of cells in the fourth neuronal line (CHP 100) were Thy-1+, although these showed strong immunofluorescence. Both glial cell lines, UCH-203 and H314/123, showed strong Thy-1 immunofluorescence on more than 90% of cells. Similarly, with fresh neuronal tumour cells, although approximately 80% of tumours were Thy-1+ (essentially 100% of cells in these being positive) there were considerable differences in the intensity of labelling by immunofluorescence between different tumours. Such heterogeneity in cell lines and malignancy may reflect normal in vivo variation. Different phenotypes might therefore represent separate neural cell lineages, or simply differences in maturational status within a lineage. The very low frequency of Thy-1+ cells in normal bone marrow (less than 0.1% of nucleated cells) indicates that anti-Thy-1 antibodies may be valuable in both the diagnosis and subsequent treatment of neuroblastoma.