In thymidylate synthase-negative mutants of mouse FM3A cells, thymidine starvation rapidly decreased mitotic activity and resulted in cell death (thymineless death). When the thymidine starvation was reversed by an addition of thymidine, mitotic activity was recovered, but the majority of mitotic cells exhibited extensive chromosome aberrations, including chromatid breaks, chromatid exchanges, and pulverizations. Autoradiographic examination revealed that chromosome instability was induced only in cells arrested in the S phase during thymidine starvation. Furthermore, the most sensitive sites to the chromosome-damaging effect appeared to be sites which had replicated just prior to thymidine starvation. During thymidine starvation, cells at other stages in the cell cycle were accumulated at the G1-S boundary, and they were insensitive to the chromosome-damaging effect. Thymidine starvation was also found to be recombinagenic. Complete removal from the medium of a thymidine analogue, 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine, resulted in a dramatic increase in the frequency of sister chromatid exchanges. These results support the view that thymidine starvation in mammalian cells results in thymineless death via induction of DNA double-strand breaks, leading to chromosome fragmentation as well as rearrangements in the cells synthesizing DNA.