The glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene family in the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans: isolation and characterization of one of the genes.

The isolation and genomic sequence of one of possibly four glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase genes in the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans is presented. The complete nucleotide sequence of the coding as well as the noncoding flanking regions of this gene has been determined. The deduced amino-acid sequence agrees with the sequence of typical glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase enzymes and its molecular weight of 36,235 agrees with its size determined previously (Yarbrough, P. and Hecht, R. (1984) J. Biol. Chem. 259, 14711-14720). That this isolated gene encodes a nematode glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase is additionally confirmed by demonstrating its immunoreactivity to an anti-nematode glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase antibody after its expression as a fusion protein with dihydrofolate reductase. Codon utilization follows a pattern typical of other expressed nematode genes. The gene is split by two introns that are highly conserved in comparison to other introns observed in C. elegans. The placement of one of these introns is conserved with respect to the chicken glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene. Within the 5' flanking sequence homology to actin and the homology 2 block of the major myosin gene (unc-54) is noted. It is of interest that the 3' flanking region contains a CAAAT box, followed by a TATAAT box, before an open reading frame of a closely linked gene that also contains a small AT-rich intron with the nematode consensus splice junction.