Sexual development of a homothallic strain of Schizosaccharomyces pombe was monitored by radiolabelling and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Of more than 60 bands detected by Coomassie brilliant blue and by autoradiography, about 30 bands synthesized during development were discrete enough for experimental analysis. About a dozen bands are preferentially vegetative, another dozen preferentially developmental. However, vegetative bands as a group are also synthesized during development. Their synthesis is relatively unaffected by low concentrations of cycloheximide or by chloramphenicol and is not temperature sensitive at 37 degrees C nor catabolite repressible. Only band 40 (ca. 40 000 daltons) seems to be exclusively vegetative. The synthesis of developmental bands 13, 18, 24, 30, and alpha, all of which first appear during late-log phase, is catabolite repressible. Developmental band 51 is also synthesized throughout the vegetative phase. The synthesis of bands 24, 30, 51, and alpha is temperature sensitive at 37 degrees C during the development, but that of band 18 is not. The synthesis of band 13 during development is not temperature sensitive, but its earlier synthesis during late-log phase is. The synthesis of all these six developmental bands is immediately inhibited by cycloheximide, but not by chloramphenicol. Their appearance as a group of radioactive bands is greatly diminished in cultures grown in cycloheximide, in chloramphenicol, or in ethidium bromide. Developmental bands 13, 18, 24, and 30 may be called readiness proteins. They first appear prior to the earliest morphological signs of sexual activity. Their developmental synthesis is inhibited by conditions that inhibit sexual development. Such inhibitory conditions include anaerobiosis, restrictive temperature, aging in stationary phase, the presence of inhibitors of cytoplasmic protein synthesis and of mitochondrial function, and catabolite repression. Readiness proteins may be regulating the switch from vegetative metabolism.