Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor (M-CSF) ,also known as CSF1,is a potent hematopoietic factor produced by a variety of cells including lymphocytes, monocytes, fibroblasts, endothelial cells, myoblasts and osteoblasts. The active form of the protein is found extracellularly as a disulfide-linked homodimer, and is thought to be produced by proteolytic cleavage of membrane-bound precursors. It is a key regulator of cellular proliferation, differentiation, and survival of blood monocytes, tissue macrophages and their progenitor cells.M-CSF affects macrophages and monocytes in several ways, including stimulating increased phagocytic and chemotactic activity, and increased tumour cell cytotoxicity.M-CSF is clinically used in the treatment of infection, malignancies and atherosclerosis. It facilitates hematopoietic recovery after bone marrow transplantation.
Recombinant mouse Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor (M-CSF) produced in E. coli is a disulfide-linked homodimer containing two non-glycosylated polypeptide chains of 156 amino acids each. A fully biologically active molecule, rmM-CSF has a molecular mass of 30 kDa analyzed by reducing SDS-PAGE and is obtained by chromatographic techniques at GenScript.