Cloning and characterization of a cDNA encoding glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase from the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe

A cDNA encoding glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPD) was isolated from the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The nucleotide and the predicted amino acid sequences were determined. A very high degree of homology with different GPD sequences present in the SWISS-PROT data bank was observed in accordance with the evolutionary conservation of this enzyme. Northern analysis and the comparison with other fungal GPD sequences suggest that the cDNA corresponds to an actively expressed gene encoding a functional GPD protein. Finally, codon usage analysis revealed the same codon bias observed for three highly expressed genes in S. pombe