The muscle nicotinic acetylcholine receptor undergoes profound changes in abundance and distribution in response to innervation and denervation. As a start towards understanding the detailed mechanisms of acetylcholine receptor gene regulation, we have identified transcriptional regulatory regions of a receptor subunit gene. A region of genomic DNA at the 5' end of the mouse acetylcholine receptor gamma-subunit gene has been shown to promote transcription of the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene in a cell-type specific manner. In addition, the transcriptional activity of this fragment is developmentally regulated in mouse muscle C2C12 cells. We propose that this fragment contains transcriptional control elements of the mouse muscle acetylcholine receptor gamma-subunit gene.