FISH mapping of the porcine NPY5 gene to chromosome 8p11

Discussion: The NPY Y5 receptor has been postulated to be the Y-type `feeding' receptor. NPY peptide analogs known to elicit feeding have high affinity for the Y5 receptor, and the distribution of the receptor mRNA in brain also supports a role in the regula- tion of feeding. The Y5 receptor has been cloned in both rat and human [4,5]. The pig Y5 shows 85% amino acid and 82% nucleo- tide identity with human Y5 over the coding region. The localization of porcine NPY5 to pig Chr 8pl l is in agreement with previ- ous comparative mapping data [6], which show that porcine Chr 8 (SSC8) corresponds to human Chr 4 (HSA4). We found that the pig KIT and NPY5 genes are in close proximity to each other, mapping to 8p12 and 8p11, respectively (see Figs. 1 and 2). Hu- man NPY5 has hitherto not been precisely mapped on HSA4q. Nonetheless, its location can be indirectly deduced because it is located 23 kb from NPY1, which maps to 4g31-32 [4,7,8]. Thus, as compared with pigs, the human homologs of NPY5 and KIT (4g12) [9] are separated by a much larger distance.