Purpose: The goal of this study was to assess the differential gene expression between control and leptin treated pituitary rostral pars distalis' of the tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus). Methods: Pituitary mRNA profiles from control (PBS) and leptin (100nM) treated tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) pituitary rostral pars disatalis were generated by deep sequencing using Illumina MiSeq. The sequence reads that passed quality filters were analyzed at the transcript abundance level using ANOVA (ANOVA) and BowTie2 followed by Cufflinks. Results: Differential gene expression identified 1995 genes that were differentially expressed in the pituitary rostral pars distalis treated with leptin compared to PBS treated controls. These genes were indicated to be functionally involved in numerous biological processes including glycolyiss. Conclusions: Our study represents the first detailed pituitary rostral pars distalis transcriptomes in the tilapia and identifies leptin as a major stimulator of glycolysis at the cellular level in teleost fishes. Overall design: Pituitary mRNA profiles from control (PBS) and leptin (100nM) treated tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) pituitary rostral pars disatalis