Human CR1 is widely distributed in the circulation as a surface receptor as well as in soluble form in the plasma. It mediates a variety of functions that include phagocytosis and regulation of the complement cascade. This receptor has been cloned and the primary structure reveals that the cell-bound molecule is an integral membrane protein with typical transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains. Its extracellular portion is composed entirely of 30 short consensus repeats (SCR) each having 60 to 70 amino acids. This type of motif is the common structural element of the superfamily of complement regulatory and receptor proteins on chromosome 1. The amino-terminal 28 SCR of CR1 is uniquely organized into four tandem long homologous repeats (LHR) with sequence homologies among corresponding SCR as high as 99%. Each LHR encodes approximately 45 kD and each except the one that is proximal to the cell surface contains a separate binding site for C3b or C4b. Analysis of the genomic structure of CR1 reveals that these LHR are results of intragenic duplication of 20- to 30-kb segments of DNA. The structural allotypes of CR1 that vary in the lengths of the polypeptides are encoded by alleles that contain different numbers of LHR. Their predicted structures would have different numbers of C3b binding sites, perhaps resulting in molecules with different capacities to bind immune complexes.