Abstract:The coding sequence of the leptin receptor (lepr) gene in Chinese perch was obtained by RACE cloning method,and four different subtypes of lepr from alternative splicing of the 3′ end of mRNA were obtained. The long-form receptor lepr-L was 3 474 bp in length encoding 1 157 amino acids,and three short subtypes of leptin receptor were lepr-S1,lepr-S2 and lepr-S3,with coding sequence of 1 512bp,945 bp,and 915 bp in length,encoding 503,314 and 304 amino acids,respectively. Sequence analysis and multiple amino acid sequences alignment revealed that the lepr-L contains complete functional domains exclusively,none of the short receptor subtype contains the transmembrane region and intracellular structure,and lepr and its leptin binding domain (LBD) sequence are highly conserved. The lepr gene is highly expressed in the gill,followed by the kidney and pituitary. The lepr mRNA abundance significantly increased at 2 h after intraperitoneal injection of the homologous recombination leptins protein B not A (P<0.05). These results indicated that different leptins may lead to different expression changes of lepr mRNA,and lead to various physiological functions.