In HMOA cells [Mamont, Duchesne, Grove and Tardif (1978) Exp. Cell Res. 115, 387-393] the half-life of ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) is 8-14 h instead of 15 min as in the Hepatoma Tissue Culture parental cells, due to a single amino acid substitution [Miyazaki, Matsufuji, Murakami and Hayashi (1993) Eur. J. Biochem. 214, 837-844]. We demonstrate for the first time that HMOA cells possess two forms of ODC mRNA that are translated into two proteins differing greatly in turnover rates. We have cloned and transfected the cDNAs for the two ODC forms into COS-1 cells for a direct measurement of their turnover rate. The variant ODC form was much more stable than the wild-type protein, with a half-life of 14 h as compared with 2.5 h.