A double-immunodiffusion method has been developed to detect human mitochondrial NADP-linked isocitrate dehydrogenase (EC 1.1.1.42; designated as IDH-2) using rabbit antiserum against the relevant enzyme. The method allows one to distinguish human IDH-2 from its mouse counterpart in extracts from human-mouse somatic cell hybrids. A correlation was found between the expression of human IDH-2 and the presence of human chromosome 15 in a "panel" of eight independent hybrid clones. Analysis of human marker enzymes for 37 different clones revealed a syntenic relationship between IDH-2 and mannose phosphate isomerase (EC 5.3.1.8; MPI), which has been assigned to chromosome 15 (1). These results permit the assignment of the structural gene for human IDH-2 to human chromosome 15. IDH-2 and human cytoplasmic IDH (IDH-1) were found to be asyntenic. Evidence from hybrid clones carrying a human X/15 translocation chromosome indicates that the human IDH-2 gene can be localized to the q11-qter region of chromosome 15.