Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor (M-CSF), also named CSF-1, is a hematopoietic growth factor that is involved in the proliferation, differentiation, and survival of monocytes, macrophages, and bone marrow progenitor cells. It is produced by osteoblasts (as a result of endocrine stimulation by parathyroid hormone) exerts paracrine effects on osteoclasts and can interact with CSF1R. M-CSF is a four α-helical bundle cytokine and its active form is found extracellularly as a disulfide-linked homodimer. Four transcript variants encoding three different isoforms have been reported for M-CSF gene. Although forms may vary, all of them contain the N-terminal 150 a.a. portion that is necessary and sufficient for interaction with the receptor. The first 229 a.a. of mature mouse M-CSF shares 87 %, 83 %, 82 % and 81 % sequence identity with corresponding regions of rat, dog, cow and human M-CSF, respectively. Human M-CSF is active in the mouse, but mouse M-CSF is reported to be species-specific.
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