Several tumor suppressor genes were shown to be inactivated by a process involving aberrant de novo methylation of their GC-rich promoters which is usually associated with transcriptional repression. The mechanisms underlying this process are poorly understood. In particular this abnormal methylation may be caused and/or maintained by either deficiency of some trans-acting factor (s) or by various malfunctions acting in cis. Here we studied the nature of aberrant methylation of the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease tumor suppressor gene in a human clear cell renal carcinoma cell line, UOK 121, that contains a silent hypermethylated endogenous VHL allele. First, we transfected unmethylated VHL transgenes, driven by the VHL promoter, into UOK 121 cells. Next, to exclude possible position effects that may influence methylation of the introduced VHL genes, we transferred a single chromosome 3, carrying an apparently normal hypomethylated VHL allele into the UOK 121 cells. Finally, we created somatic cell hybrids between UOK 121 and UMRC 6 cells containing a mutant VHL-expressing hypomethylated allele. In these three experiments both the methylation of the VHL promoter and the transcriptional status of the introduced and endogenous VHL alleles remained unchanged. Our results demonstrate that the putative trans-acting factors present in the UOK 121 and UMRC 6 cells are unable to induce changes in methylation pattern of the VHL alleles in all cell lines and hybrids studied. Taken together, the results indicate that cis-specific local features are pivotal in maintaining and perpetuating aberrant methylation of the VHL CpG island. Contribution of some putative trans-acting factors cannot be excluded during a period when the aberrant VHL methylation pattern was first generated.