Cloning and sequence analysis of the fermentative alcohol-dehydrogenase-encoding gene of Escherichia coli

A 6-kb fragment of DNA, which complemented defects in the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH)-encoding gene (adhE) of Escherichia coli, was cloned into a multicopy vector. Both ADH and coenzyme-A-linked acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ACDH) activities were encoded by the plasmid, pHIL8. The adhE gene was identified as an open reading frame of 891 codons encoding an Mr 96,008 protein (minus the initiating methionine). Codon usage analysis indicates that adhE should be highly expressed. This gene shows no significant homology to any previously sequenced ADH-encoding gene.