Three tumor cell lines derived from human colon, urinary bladder and ovarian carcinoma were serially passaged in the continuous presence of human interferon alpha for extended periods of time. Phenotypic changes induced by interferon differed among these three cell lines. Thus interferon enhanced colon tumor cell aggregation but inhibited the aggregation of bladder tumor cells. The antiproliferative activity of interferon was more pronounced in bladder and ovarian cells than in colonic cells. However, the tumorigenicity of parental and cloned colon tumor cells injected i.p. or s.c. was markedly reduced by passage of the cells with interferon. Interferon treatment reduced the tumorigenicity of ovarian tumor cells when these cells were injected i.p. but not when injected s.c. The tumorigenicity of bladder tumor cells was not affected by interferon.