Cyclophosphamide induced generation of giant hypersegmented granulocytes in rat bone marrow: cell cycle distribution and silver nucleolar staining

Daily injection of cyclophosphamide (20 mg/kg body weight) for 7 days resulted in accumulation of 50% of rat bone marrow granulocytes in G2. Tetraploid neutrophils were hypersegmented (7.25 +/- 0.33) in comparison with diploid ones (3.92 +/- 0.33). After 14 days of cyclophosphamide treatment tetraploid hypersegmented neutrophils could be found in peripheral blood. Diploid neutrophils in these animals were also hypersegmented (4.78 +/- 0.14 versus 3.15 +/- 0.02 in control, p less than 0.001). Nucleolar ribosomal gene activities, evaluated by morphometry of silver nucleolar grains, decreased on bone marrow granulocytes in the course of differentiation in control rats. After cyclophosphamide treatment mature granulocytes contained more silver grains than in controls which may be explained by conservation of silver binding sites of nucleoli from the stages of promyelocytes and myelocytes. These results suggest two mechanisms of hypersegmented neutrophil, generation in cyclophosphamide treated rats: the first, via maturation of myelocytes arrested in G2, and second, a direct one, without tetraploid granulocyte involvement.