Apoptosis induced in human osteosarcoma cells is one of the mechanisms for the cytocidal effect of Ad5CMV-p53. Recombinant adenovirus Ad5CMV-p53 induced a strong cytocidal effect in Saos-LM2 cells. This cell line, derived from human osteosarcoma Saos-2 cells, has a homozygous deletion of the p53 gene. By using immunocytochemical and Western blot analyses, we demonstrated that Ad5CMV-p53 effectively infected Saos-LM2 cells at multiplicities of infection of 10 to 50 plaque-forming units/cell and mediated a high-level expression of the exogenous wild-type p53 protein in the cells. Growth of the infected cells was greatly suppressed whereas that of mock- or control virus-infected cells was not. Because wild-type p53 induces apoptosis in certain types of cells, we studied DNA fragmentation in situ in the Ad5CMV-p53-infected Saos-LM2 cells by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase assays, which yielded positive nuclear staining. Further analysis of the Ad5CMV-p53-infected Saos-LM2 cells by light and electron microscopy demonstrated that the cells underwent the characteristic morphological changes of apoptosis such as plasma-membrane blebbing, nuclear condensation, and fragmentation. These changes were not observed in mock- or control virus-infected cells. Our results on Saos-LM2 cells indicate that apoptosis induced by Ad5CMV-p53 may be one of the mechanisms underlying the cytocidal effect of Ad5CMV-p53.