The human proto-oncogene c-fms [FMS] on chromosome 5q33.3 encodes a transmembrane glycoprotein with tyrosine kinase activity that functions as the cell surface receptor for the macrophage colony stimulating factor (CSF-1 or M-CSF). Overlapping bacteriophage clones that included 35 kb of the FMS locus and contained the complete coding sequence of the CSF-1 receptor were subjected to nucleotide sequencing analysis. Comparison with the cDNA sequence of the human c-fms gene indicated that at least one 5' noncoding exon is located far upstream (ca. 26 kb) from sequences encoding the CSF-1 receptor. The FMS coding sequence consists of 21 small exons and heterogeneously sized introns, ranging from 6.3 kb to less than 0.1 kb in complexity.