Characterization of a functional recombinant rat liver aldehyde dehydrogenase: expression as a non-fusion protein in E. coli.

A cDNA encoding a rat liver inducible aldehyde dehydrogenase carried in a pUC8 plasmid is expressed in E. coli as a dimeric enzyme molecule functionally and physically identical to the authentic rat enzyme. The cDNA appears to be transcribed using the lac promoter, but is translated from an initiator codon 174 base pairs from the 5' end of the cDNA. The aldehyde dehydrogenase polypeptide is not produced as a fusion protein. This is the first example of the production by E. coli of a catalytically active, multimeric eukaryotic protein which is not a fusion protein.