Aldehyde Dehydrogenase 1 Family, Member B1 (ALDH1B1)

ALDH1B1 belongs to the aldehyde dehydrogenases family of proteins. Aldehyde dehydrogenase is the second enzyme of the major oxidative pathway of alcohol metabolism. This gene does not contain introns in the coding sequence. The variation of this locus may affect the development of alcohol-related problems.

Hsu et al. (1989) cloned a novel ALDH gene, ALDH5, from a cosmid human DNA library. Although it contains no introns, Northern blot hybridization of human liver RNA revealed a unique mRNA component that hybridized with this gene probe but with neither the ALDH1 probe or the ALDH2 probe. ALDH5 encodes a deduced 517-amino acid protein that shares 70.6% and 62.8% sequence identity with the ALDH2 and ALDH1 proteins, respectively.