Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) is a rare disorder of unknown origin characterized by alveolar fillings with periodic acid-Schiff (PAS)-positive material mainly consisting of phospholipids. Mice defective in the granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) gene or the GM-CSF/interleukin (IL)-3/IL-5-receptor common beta chain (beta c) demonstrate a pathology resembling PAP. A recent study revealed defects in the beta c chain of the GM-CSF receptor in four out of eight paediatric patients. This study investigates the role of the GM-CSF coding region and components of the GM-CSF receptor in adult patients. Four adult patients with proven PAP were analysed for GM-CSF and GM-CSF-beta c receptor in regard to protein level, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) expression and sequence composition. None of the adult patients displayed the mutation at position 1,835 of the beta c-receptor previously described in paediatric patients. Expression of the beta c receptor was found to be normal on the surface of peripheral blood cells. In three out of four patients GM-CSF release from blood cells failed to respond adequately to lipopolysaccharide (LPS). In one of these patients a heterozygous mutation was found in the GM-CSF complementary deoxyribonucleic acid (cDNA) from thymine (T) to cytosine (C) at position 382 of the published sequence putatively causing a change in the protein from isoleucine to threonine at position 117. This study indicates that the mutation of the beta chain receptors found in some of the paediatric patients suffering from pulmonary alveolar proteinosis is not a common problem in adult patients.