Bovine monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (bovine MCP-1) cDNA has recently been characterized and shown to be highly expressed in bovine seminal vesicles. In an attempt to isolate the MCP-1 gene, we screened a bovine genomic lambda EMBL-3 library with an MCP-1 specific probe pH42. A positive clone lambda MCP1 was subjected to restriction analysis and a pH42-positive EcoRI-fragment of 3.8 kb was subcloned and sequenced. The bovine MCP-1 gene consists of three exons separated by two introns. We undertook to identify homologous sequences 5'-upstream of the transcriptional start site within the genes of rat, mouse, human and bovine MCP-1. Six conserved sequence stretches located within 400 bp upstream of the transcriptional start site in MCP-1 genes were detected. Interestingly an approximately 45 bp long region, displaying identities in the range of 68-72% relative to the human sequence, covers in the rat gene the -141/88 region responsible for TPA induction of gene expression.