Recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (rhGM-CSF) has been expressed in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Purified to homogeneity, which facilitates to study the structure and function of this factor. Recently, the study of structure and function of rhGM-CSF has been mainly focused on crystal structure, including chemical modification. conformation and stability in solution, mutation and molecular design. The progress in study the structure-function relationship and the mechanism of interaction of GM-CSF with its receptor is discussed.