The cellular homologue of the retroviral oncogene v-fos has been shown to be involved in cell differentiation of hematopoietic cells. By use of the human promyelocyte cell line HL-60, several in vitro differentiation studies suggested a selective activation of c-fos during monocytic differentiation of myeloid precursor cells. In contrast to these observations, we found high levels of c-fos mRNA in purified normal human granulocytes, whereas c-fos was only faintly expressed in blood monocytes. In situ hybridization revealed that the high level of c-fos expression is restricted to neutrophilic granulocytes, whereas c-fos transcription is not detectable in eosinophilic granulocytes. These results indicate that in vitro differentiation systems can be misleading and may not reflect the in vivo situation. The high level of c-fos expression in neutrophilic granulocytes may be caused by superinduction due to the reduced capacity for protein synthesis in these cells.