title: Molecular cloning and expression of a second zebrafish aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 gene (aldh2b).
abstract: Aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) is primarily responsible for detoxification of short-chain aldehydes in vivo. Previously it was reported that zebrafish has an aldh2 gene. Here we report the presence of a second aldh2 gene (aldh2b) in zebrafish. Zebrafish aldh2b locates adjacently to aldh2 on Chromosome 5 and the two genes share the same genomic organizations. aldh2b was predicted to encode a protein comprising 516 amino acids. The protein exhibits 95% amino acid identity with zebrafish ALDH2 and more than 76% identity with other vertebrate ALDH2s, respectively. Employing RT-PCR analysis, we demonstrated that both aldh2 and aldh2b mRNAs were present in embryos at cleavage stage (2 hpf: hour post fertilization) throughout protruding-mouth stage (72 hpf) and in different adult tissues of zebrafish. Taken together, our results reveal that zebrafish has two orthologues of aldh2 gene and the two genes share similar expression patterns during early development and in adult tissues.
authors.affiliation: Model Animal Research Center, State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Model Animal Research Center, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Zhiying
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Xingxing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Xiaofeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Qingshun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000444:Aldehyde Dehydrogenase / Q000235:genetics*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D017931:DNA Primers; D004625:Embryo, Nonmammalian / Q000201:enzymology; D040461:Gene Components; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D000444:Aldehyde Dehydrogenase