Genetic instability is recognized as an important aspect of the development of tumor heterogeneity and malignancy. In a previous study [Hill et al. Science (Wash. DC), 244:998-1001, 1984], we demonstrated that metastatic variants are generated at a more rapid rate in the highly metastatic B16F10 mouse melanoma cell line than in the less metastatic B16F1 cell line. The metastatic variants were phenotypically unstable, being generated and lost at high rates; consequently, we proposed a dynamic heterogeneity model of tumor metastasis which describes these properties quantitatively. As an extension of this work, we have examined the ability of these two melanoma cell lines to generate variants resistant to the drugs methotrexate and N-(phosphonacetyl)-L-aspartate. We observed that the highly metastatic B16F10 cell line generated variants resistant to a given concentration of methotrexate or N-(phosphonacetyl)-L-aspartate at higher rates than the B16F1 cell line. We conclude that B16F10 cells are genetically less stable than B16F1 cells and since resistance to methotrexate and N-(phosphonacetyl)-L-asparate usually results from gene amplification that B16F10 cells possess increased ability to amplify DNA. This higher rate of generation of drug-resistant variants corresponds to the higher rate of generation of metastatic variants we observed previously and suggests that a gene amplification mechanism may be involved in the generation of a metastic phenotype in B16 melanoma cells.