Hemopoietic growth factors and their interactions with specific receptors.

Four hemopoietic growth factors (colony-stimulating factors--CSF's) interact with committed progenitors of granulocytes and macrophages to control their survival, proliferation, differentiation, and functional activation of the mature cells. All four growth factors have now been purified and cloned, and their human equivalents identified and cloned. In this review the most important characteristics of the biological specificities of each CSF are described and correlated with what has been learned about the interactions of the CSF's with specific cellular receptors.