Molecular cloning of a cDNA for human delta-aminolevulinate dehydratase.

A cDNA encoding human delta-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase (ALA-D; EC 4.2.1.24), the second enzyme in the heme biosynthetic pathway, was isolated from a human liver cDNA expression library. Of the original 17 clones selected with anti-ALA-D antibody, only four expressed anti-ALA-D epitopes as assessed by rescreening with antibody preabsorbed with purified antigen. Subsequent screening of the antibody-positive clones with mixed oligodeoxynucleotide (oligo) probes, synthesized to correspond to human N-terminal and bovine active-site peptide sequences, identified three clones which hybridized only with the oligo probes for the bovine amino acid (aa) sequences. Restriction endonucleases analysis revealed that these three clones contained the same 800-bp cDNA insert. This insert was recloned into bacteriophage M13mp18 and mp19 and sequenced by primer extension. The aa sequence predicted from the partial nucleotide sequence was found to be essentially colinear with the sequences of four bovine ALA-D peptides, totaling 35 non-overlapping aa residues.