Department of Biochemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907.
The nucleotide sequence of soybean lipoxygenase-2 cDNA has been determined, and the complete amino acid sequence of the enzyme has been deduced. Limited direct amino acid sequence data for lipoxygenase-2 protein support this assignment and exclude mRNA representing lipoxygenase-1 and -3. Lipoxygenase 2 has a molecular weight of 97,036 and contains 865 amino acid residues, in contrast to the isozymes, lipoxygenase-1 and -3, which are known to contain 838 and 859 amino acid residues, respectively. Despite significant differences in behavior between these three isozymes, the amino acid sequences of lipoxygenase-1 and -3 are 81 and 74% identical to lipoxygenase-2, respectively. A region of 40 amino acid residues containing a cluster of six histidines and two tyrosines, which is highly conserved in all three isozymes, is discussed as a possible iron-binding region.