The beta-adrenergic blocker dl-propranolol prevented a large proportion of regenerating rat liver cells from entering the mitotic phase of their first cell division cycle without affecting their ability to initiate or complete DNA replication. The drug, at a dose of 20 or 50 mg/kg of body weight, was most effective in reducing mitosis when injected between 1 and 2 hours after the proliferatively activating partial hepatectomy, which was 22 to 23 hours before the peak of DNA-synthetic activity. Propranolol also inhibited the early prereplicative surge of total liver cyclic AMP, which occurs shortly after partial hepatectomy, but this effect was not correlated to the mitosis-inhibiting activity. However, cyclic AMP or dibutyryl cyclic AMP completely reversed propranolol's mitosis-inhibiting action when injected between 1.5 and 2 hours (but not sooner or later) after partial hepatectomy, which was just before the total liver cyclic AMP content began to rise. Thus, there appears to be a transient, propranolol-inhibitable, probably cyclic AMP-initiated event in the early prereplicative development of rat hepatocytes that determines entry into mitosis rather than the initiation of DNA replication.