Isolation and chromosomal mapping of the human homolog of perilipin (PLIN), a rat adipose tissue-specific gene, by differential display method.

Using the differential display technique, we isolated a cDNA clone encoding the human homolog of rat perilipin, a unique protein associated with intracellular neutral lipid droplets in adipocytes and steroidogenic cells. The full cDNA contains an open reading frame of 1566 nucleotides encoding 522 amino acids and bears 79% amino acid identity to rat perilipin. Northern blot analysis showed that among 20 human adult tissues examined, human perilipin was expressed specifically in adipose tissues. We determined the chromosomal location of the perilipin gene at 15q26 by means of fluorescence in situ hybridization.