Veratraldehyde is an organic compound that is widely used as a flavorant and odorant. The compound is structurally related to benzaldehyde. This compound is popular commercially because of its pleasant woody fragrance. It is derivative of vanillin, from which it is prepared by methylation. YMR318C represents an open reading frame from Saccharomyces cerevisiae with unknown function. It possesses a conserved sequence motif, the zinc-containing alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) signature, specific to the medium-chain zinc-containing ADHs. In the present study, the YMR318C gene product has been purified to homogeneity from overexpressing yeast cells, and found to be a homodimeric ADH, composed of 40 kDa subunits and with a pI of 5.0-5.4. The enzyme was strictly specific for NADPH and was active with a wide variety of substrates, including aliphatic (linear and branched-chain) and aromatic primary alcohols and aldehydes.
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