The purpose of the present study was to investigate the anti-proliferative and apoptotic effects of MCS-C2, a novel synthetic analogue of the pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine nucleoside toyocamycin and sangivamycin, in human promyelocytic leukemia (HL-60) cells. When treated with 5 microM MCS-C2, inhibited proliferation associated with apoptotic induction was found in the HL-60 cells in a concentration-dependent and time-dependent manner, plus nuclear DAPI staining revealed the typical nuclear features of apoptosis. However, MCS-C2 showed almost no antiproliferative effect and no apoptotic induction in normal lymphocyte cells used as a control when compared with those in HL-60 cancer cells. Moreover, a flow cytometric analysis of the HL-60 cells using FITC-dUTP and propidium iodide (PI) showed that the apoptotic cell population increased gradually from <1% at 0 h to 34% at 12 h after exposure to 5 microM MCS-C2. This apoptotic induction was associated with the cleavage of Bid and a release of cytochrome c from mitochondria into the cytosol, followed by the activation of caspase-3 and inactivation of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). However, there was no significant change in any other mitochondrial membrane proteins, such as Bcl-2 and Bax. Consequently, the current findings suggest that the mitochondrial pathway was primarily involved in the MCS-C2-induced apoptosis in the human promyelocytic leukemia HL-60 cells.