Incubation of chick embryo retinal explants with insulin resulted in a pronounced inhibition of thymidine uptake and incorporation into trichloroacetic acid-insoluble fraction. The inhibitory effect was highest with explants from embryos at day 7 and day 8, and thereafter it declined markedly with the age of embryos until day 11. A time-course study of the effect revealed that the inhibition occurred after a lag time; both thymidine uptake and incorporation were not altered significantly after 2-6 h of incubation with insulin, but began to decrease thereafter, reaching the maximum after 16 h. The effect was also dose dependent. After 16 h of incubation, the maximal inhibition (65%) was found with 10(-8) M insulin. Insulin caused similar effects also on thymidine kinase activity. All these effects were obtained by using minimal essential medium without glutamine. The addition of glutamine to the medium reduced the inhibitory effect of insulin. Retinas of chick embryos contain immunoreactive insulin. Retinal immunoreactive insulin was at the highest level (1.12 ng/mg of protein) in the youngest retinas studied (day 6), then it declined with age, reaching the lowest value (0.58 ng/mg of protein) at day 14. This value did not vary significantly during the third week of development. A potential biological role of insulin in retinal development is discussed.