Hydroquinone inhibits bone marrow pre-B cell maturation in vitro

Environmental exposure to benzene results in both myelotoxicity and immunotoxicity. Although benzene-induced immunotoxicity has been well documented, no studies to date have addressed the possibility that benzene toxicity is due in part to altered differentiation of marrow lymphoid cells. We investigated the effect of acute exposure to the benzene metabolite, hydroquinone, on murine bone marrow B-lymphopoiesis. Bone marrow cell suspensions from B6C3F1 (C57BL/6J x C3H/HeJ) mice were depleted of mature surface IgM+ (sIgM+) B cells and cultured for 0, 24, 48, or 72 hr and production of newly formed B cells was assayed both by sIgM expression and colony formation in soft agar cultures. One hr exposure of bone marrow cells to hydroquinone before culture reduced the number of sIgM+ cells generated in liquid cultures. Small pre-B cells (cytoplasmic mu heavy chain+, sIgM-) were numerically elevated as compared with control cultures. Hydroquinone exposure also decreased the number of adherent cells found in cultures of bone marrow cells. These results suggest that short-term exposure to hydroquinone, an oxidative metabolite of benzene, may in some way block the final maturation stages of B cell differentiation. This apparent differentiation block resulted in reduced numbers of B cells generated in culture and a corresponding accumulation of pre-B cells. Reduction of adherent cells in treated cultures may also suggest that toxicity to regulatory cells for the B lineage may be in part responsible for this aspect of hydroquinone myelotoxicity.