Neuropeptide Y (NPY), peptide YY (PYY), and pancreatic polypeptide (PP) are structurally related but functionally diverse peptides, encoded by separate genes and expressed in different tissues. Although the human NPY gene has been mapped to chromosome 7, we demonstrate here that the genes for human PYY and PP (PPY) are localized only 10 kb apart from each other on chromosome 17q21.1. The high degree of homology between the members of this gene family, both in primary sequence and exon/intron structure, suggests that the NPY and the PYY genes arose from an initial gene duplication event, with a subsequent tandem duplication of the PYY gene being responsible for duplication of the PYY gene being responsible for the creation of the PPY gene. A second weaker hybridization signal also found on chromosome 17q11 and results obtained by Southern blot analysis suggest that the entire PYY-PPY region has undergone a further duplication event.