Exposure of chicken cells grown in tissue culture to heat shock or sodium arsenite results in a dramatic increase in the synthesis of three major polypeptides with molecular weights of 83,000 (HSP 83), 68,000 (HSP 68; referred to here as "thermin"), and 25,000 (HSP 25). Incubation of BHK-21 or HeLa cells under the same conditions results in induction of HSP 68 and a 66,000-dalton polypeptide (HSP 66). Chicken thermin is resolved by isoelectric focusing into a major acidic and a more-basic component; mammalian thermin is resolved only into one major acidic component. HSP 83 and the acidic form of thermin are highly conserved in all avian and mammalian cells examined as judged by their electrophoretic mobilities, isoelectric points, and one-dimensional peptide maps. In addition, the acidic form of thermin is indistinguishable from a protein that copurifies with brain microtubules and that remains associated with the intermediate filament-enriched Triton/KCl cytoskeletons of cells grown in tissue culture. Thermin is also a component of skeletal myofibrils. HSP 83 and thermin are methylated in cells cultured under normal growth conditions. Induction of heat shock proteins by incubation of cells in the presence of sodium arsenite results in a marked methylation of the newly synthesized thermin. Under the same experimental conditions, no significant increase in methylation of the HSP 83 is observed. HSP 25 is not methylated in untreated cells or in cells treated with sodium arsenite. These results suggest that methylation of heat shock proteins may have an important role in regulating their function.