A group of cytokines characterized by a common set of target cells--namely, the pluripotential hemopoietic stem cells or their cellular derivatives--share similarities in the amino acid sequence at their N terminus or in the putative signal peptide immediately prior to the published N terminus. Murine P-cell-stimulating factor (PSF), murine and human interleukin 2 (IL-2), murine and human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), human erythropoietin, and human interleukin 1 beta all share alanine as the N-terminal amino acid and have some similarities in the succeeding three or four amino acids. In the case of murine PSF and GM-CSF, the six N-terminal amino acids are readily cleaved from mature molecules and are lacking from the N-terminal amino acid sequences reported initially. A sixth cytokine, colony-stimulating factor 1, has an alanine followed by a similar pattern of five amino acids at the end of the putative signal peptide. GM-CSF and IL-2 have more extensive homology, about 25% of residues being identical in three regions that comprise about 70% of the molecules. Only minor similarities of uncertain significance were found among the complete amino acid sequences of the other cytokines. Although its evolutionary origin is uncertain, the homology around the N terminus may provide a structural marker for a group of cytokines active on the pluripotential hemopoietic stem cell and its derivatives.