It was demonstrated recently that substrates for protein N-methyltransferases (J. Najbauer and D. W. Aswad, 1990, J. Biol. Chem. 265, 12,717-12,721) and protein carboxyl methyltransferases (J. Najbauer, B. A. Johnson, and D. W. Aswad, 1991, Anal. Biochem. 197, 412-420) accumulate when rat PC12 cells are cultured in the presence of the methylation inhibitor, adenosine dialdehyde. In the present report, we have further characterized this phenomenon in PC12 cells and in two other, widely used cell types. Adenosine dialdehyde was found to increase the methyl-accepting capacity of proteins in human skin fibroblasts and mouse Sp2/0 myeloma cells. However, both the level of methyl incorporation in untreated cells and the amount of stimulation afforded by inhibitor treatment were substantially lower in these cells than in PC12 cells. All three cell lines accumulated methyl acceptor(s) at 17-21 kDa. The PC12 cells and the fibroblasts also exhibited stimulation of three apparently similar proteins in the 33- to 38-kDa region, where several arginine-methylated proteins involved in RNA processing would be expected. The optimal conditions for methylation of PC12 cell extracts with regard to pH, time of methylation, and S-[methyl-3H]adenosyl-L-methionine concentration were characterized. Increased methyl incorporation was detected after adenosine dialdehyde treatments as short as 2 h, and methylation of most substrates continued to increase as the time of treatment was extended to 72 h. The kinetics of accumulation varied from substrate to substrate. Fluorograms of two-dimensional gels of extracts from untreated PC12 cells incubated in the presence of S-[methyl-3H]adenosyl-L-methionine revealed patterns of methyl incorporation similar to those of treated cells, but longer exposure times were necessary (e.g., 35 days vs 7 days). These findings suggest that the inhibitor treatment works mainly by inhibiting the post- or cotranslational methylation of a "normal" array of cellular proteins.