Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is an inducible glycoprotein expressed on the surface of inflamed endothelium which mediates in part the extravasation of granulocytes into sites of infection or injury. ICAM-1 mRNA is not detected in unstimulated human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), but accumulates transiently following tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) or phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) treatment with maximal steady state levels occurring at 2 or 4 h, respectively. Pretreating HUVECs with PMA for 72 h down-regulates protein kinase C and inhibits the subsequent induction of ICAM-1 mRNA by PMA, but does not affect TNF-alpha-induced message accumulation. Nuclear run-on assays showed that the ICAM-1 gene is transcribed under basal conditions in HUVECs, and that TNF-alpha stimulates transcriptional activity 3- to 4-fold within 30 min of treatment. In contrast, PMA has little effect on ICAM-1 gene transcription up to 4 h following stimulation. Message stability studies established that ICAM-1 mRNA induced by PMA has a longer half-life than the TNF-alpha-induced message. These results suggest that PMA acts through protein kinase C to up-regulate ICAM-1 expression primarily at a post-transcriptional level by stabilizing ICAM-1 mRNA, whereas TNF-alpha transcriptionally regulates ICAM-1 gene expression through an undefined, protein kinase C-independent pathway.