The anthracycline antitumor antibiotic aclarubicin is known to induce granulocytic differentiation in the human myeloid leukemia cell line HL-60. We investigated whether this effect is accompanied by changes in the expression of the protooncogenes c-myc and c-myb. Treatment of HL-60 cells with aclarubicin, 50 nM, caused a rapid decrease in c-myc and c-myb mRNA levels within 1 h and 2 h, respectively. In parallel, we demonstrated a strong induction of superoxide-anion production on day 8 of treatment. The kinetics of the effect of aclarubicin on c-myc and c-myb expression were comparable to those associated with the dimethylsulfoxide-induced granulocytic differentiation in this cell line, or to those observed following a chase with actinomycin D, 4 microM. Since aclarubicin partially inhibited total- and poly(A)(+)-RNA synthesis, this macromolecular synthesis inhibition may be causally related to the decrease in c-myc and c-myb mRNA levels. In contrast, the conventional anthracycline doxorubicin, which did not initiate differentiation, failed to affect c-myc or c-myb mRNA levels even in high cytotoxic concentrations, indicating that the suppression of c-myc and c-myb mRNA levels may be an early differentiation-related effect of aclarubicin. On the other hand, actinomycin D, 12.5 nM, and novobiocin, 300 microM, two other known inducers of granulocytic differentiation in HL-60 cells, did not induce an early decrease in c-myb or c-myc expression. Therefore, the immediate suppression of c-myc and c-myb mRNA levels, apparently, is not an obligatory step in chemically induced myeloid differentiation in HL-60 cells, but the common phenomenon in DMSO- and aclarubicin-induced differentiation.