Abstract: In order to find out the relationship between the changes of melatonin secretion and expression of c-fos oncogene, in this study, we have one day-old chicks by controlling different illumination conditions, then take out 1 cm bone marrow, immunohistochemical analysis showed that：①positive signal in the cytoplasm of monocytic series; positive signal in the cell nuclei of megakaryocytic series, granulocytic series and lymphocyteic series; no positive signal in erythrocyte. ②With the extension of illumination time, the expression of c-fos had a growth trend. The results showed that c-fos is related to cell proliferation and differentiation of bone marrow cells. The increase of melatonin can significantly inhibit c-fos oncogene expression and the reduction of melatonin can stimulate c-fos expression. According to the results of this experiment can speculate that melatonin can impact on proliferation and differentiation of bone marrow cells by regulating the expression of c-fos.

Key words: melatonin; c-fos oncogene; bone marrow