In the present study,the expression levels of the leptin and its related genes including leptin receptor (leptin-R) and leptin receptor overlapping transcript like-1 (leprotl-1) in Megalobrama amblycephala during embryonic and larval development as well as in various adults' tissues were studied using qRT-PCR.The results showed that the three genes were ubiquitously expressed in all the examined adults' tissues,which suggested their multiple physiology functions in M. amblycephala.During embryonic and larval developmental,the leptin-R and leprotl-1 genes had lower and fluctuant expression levels.Expression levels of the three genes had no differences before 5 days post-hatching (dph),which suggested that these genes may be related to the regulation of energy during early developmental stages.Expression levels of both the leptin-R and leprotl-1 genes reached the peak at 12 dph,but the leptin expression increased from 5 dph and reached the peak at 15 dph,which indicated that the three genes may participated in the M. amblycephala sex differentiation during larval developmental stages.The correlation coefficients among leptin,leptin-R and leprotl-1 mRNA levels indicated that these three genes were positively correlated during embryonic and larval developmental stages in M. amblycephala.