Melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) is a neuroendocrine peptide involved in the regulation of skin pigmentation in teleosts. We isolated and sequenced a 543 bp hypothalamic cDNA encoding the MCH-preprohormone of tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus). Initially, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) experiments were performed on hypothalamic RNA with a synthetic oligonucleotide primer corresponding to a conserved region of salmon and mammalian MCH peptide and an oligo dT primer. A 0.2 kb PCR fragment was obtained and found to have low but significant nucleotide sequence similarity with the 3' ends of known MCH-mRNAs. Subsequently, the PCR fragment was used to screen λZAP cDNA libraries constructed from tilapia hypothalamic poly(A(+)) RNA. The cloned tilapia MCH preprohormone cDNA encodes a 133-amino acid protein of which 17 amino acids belong to the signal peptide. The MCH peptide sequence is located at the carboxy terminus of the preprohormone structure and is preceded by a pair of arginine residues which can serve as a proteolytic cleavage site. 23 to 25 amino acids further upstream in the prohormone structure three consecutive basic residues are present. Cleavage at this site would yield a 22-amino acid MCH gene-related peptide (Mgrp), which is much larger than (12- to 13-amino acid) salmon and mammalian Mgrp. A comparative structural analysis between tilapia preproMCH and its salmon and mammalian counterparts revealed that the MCH peptide sequence is very well conserved (100% identity with salmon and 75% identity with both rat and human MCH). In contrast, the remaining parts of the preproMCH structures have diverged considerably. Northern blot analysis revealed the presence of tilapia preproMCH mRNA in the hypothalamus and not in other brain regions nor in several peripheral tissues.