Isolation and characterization of cDNA clone for human liver 10-formyltetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase

A cDNA clone encoding 10-formyltetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase (10-FTHFDH) w as isolated from a human fetal liver cDNA library. It contained the open re ading frame of 2,709 base pairs and predicted a protein comprising 902 amin o acids with a calculated molecular weight of 98,700 Da. The deduced protei n showed about 93.6 % homology (90.5 % identity, 3.1 % favored substitution s) when compared with rat 10-FTHFDH. The distribution of 10-FTHFDH transcri pt in various human tissues was studied by Northern blot analysis using pol y(A(+)) RNAs from different tissues. The 10-FTHFDH transcript with an appro ximate size of 2.7 kb was mainly expressed in human kidney, skeletal muscle , and liver and rarely expressed in other tissues.