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Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase in the archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus (SsGAPD) has been purified 232 fold with an overall recovery of about 25%. The enzyme is a homomeric tetramer with an M(r) of 41 kDa/subunit. It utilizes either NAD+ or NADP+ as coenzyme but its affinity for the latter is about 50 fold higher. SsGAPD activity is maximum at 87 degrees C. In the range 45-87 degrees C the Arrhenius plot is linear and the activation energy is 55 kJ/mol. The enzyme is thermostable, with a half-life of 45 min at 87 degrees C. The primary structure of SsGAPD shows 35% identity with that of other archaeal GAPDs. Its N-domain shows sequence motifs typical of the dinucleotide binding proteins while the catalytic C-terminal region contains a cysteine residue (C140), required for catalysis, that is conserved in all the archaeal, eukaryal and bacterial GAPDs. These remarks suggest that archaeal GAPDs show a convergent molecular evolution to the eukaryal and eubacterial enzymes in the catalytic region.

A Sulfolobus solfataricus genomic library cloned in the EMBL3 phage was screened using as probes synthetic oligonucleotides designed from the known amino acid sequence of a peptide obtained from the purified glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (aGAPD) protein. The screening led to the isolation of six recombinant phages (lambda G1-lambda G6) and one of them (lambda G4) contained the entire GAPD gene. The deduced amino acid sequence accounts for a protein made of 341 amino acids and the initial methionine is encoded by a GTG triplet. Alignment of the S. solfataricus aGAPD sequence versus GAPD from archaea, eukarya, and bacteria showed that aGAPD is very similar to other archaebacterial but not to eukaryotic or eubacterial GAPD. For known archaebacterial GAPD sequences, the rate of nucleotide substitutions per site per year showed that these sequences are homologous not only at the amino acid but also at the nucleotide level. The evolutionary rates are nearly similar to those reported for other eukaryotic genes.