Previous work from our and other laboratories has shown that tumor promoters stimulated the loss of fibronectin (FN) from the cell surface of fibroblasts in culture; retinoic acid (RA) appeared to counteract this loss. We have now studied the action of RA and carotenoids on FN synthesis and release. Using mouse fibroblasts (C3H/10T1/2 cells), we found that RA inhibited release of FN into the medium in a time- and concentration-dependent manner (e.g. 90% inhibition in 48 h with 1 x 10(-6) M RA). RA caused inhibition of synthesis, as well as a time- and concentration-dependent decrease in FN mRNA. A second phenomenon we observed was the greatly increased binding of FN to the surface of the cells, both in dimeric and multimeric forms, caused by RA treatment. RA produced a striking inhibition of the 12-O-tetradecanoyl-phorbol-13-acetate (TPA)-stimulated FN release from the cell surface usually associated with tumor promotion. We postulate that the combined action of RA in causing decreased FN synthesis and increased FN binding to the cell surface is the reason for the apparent antagonism of RA to the TPA-stimulated release of FN. Surprisingly, beta-carotene (BC) and canthaxanthin (a non-provitamin A carotenoid) also inhibited the release of FN from these cells. The action of BC was specific, in that an antioxidant carotenoid (trans-methyl-bixin) and lycopene were inactive. BC also inhibited FN synthesis and thus inhibited the TPA-stimulated release of FN, similar to RA, but to a lesser extent. BC had no effect on the binding of FN to the cell surface.