The amino acid sequence of alcohol dehydrogenase of class I11 from rat liver (the enzyme ADH-2) has been determined. This type of structure is quite different from those of both the class I and the class I1 alcohol dehydrogenases. The rat class I11 structure differs from the rat and human class I structures by 133 -138 residues (exact value depending on species and isozyme type); and from that of human class I1 by 132 residues. In contrast, the rat/human species difference within the class I11 enzymes is only 21 residues. The protein was carboxymethylated with iod0[2~~C]acetate, and cleaved with CNBr and proteolytic enzymes. Peptides purified by exclusion chromatography and reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography were analyzed by degradation with a gas-phase sequencer and with the manual 4-N,N-dimethylaminoazobenzene-4'-isothiocyanate double-coupling method.The protein chain has 373 residues with a blocked N terminus. No evidence was obtained for heterogeneity. The rat ADH-2 enzyme of class I11 contains an insertion of Cys at position 60 in relation to the class I enzymes, while the latter alcohol dehydrogenase in rat (ADH-3) has another Cys insertion (at position 111) relative to ADH-2. The structure deduced explains the characteristic differences of the class I11 alcohol dehydrogenase in relation to the other classes of alcohol dehydrogenase, including a high absorbance, an anodic electrophoretic mobility and special kinetic properties. The main amino acid substitutions are found in the catalytic domain and in the subunit interacting segments of the coenzyme-binding domain, the latter explaining the lack of hybrid dimers between subunits of different classes. Several substitutions provide an enlarged and more hydrophilic substrate-binding pocket, which appears compatible with a higher water content in the pocket and hence could possibly explain the higher K , for all substrates as compared with the corresponding values for the class I enzymes. Finally the class I11 structure supports evolutionary relationships suggesting that the three classes constitute clearly separate enzymes within the group of mammalian zinc-containing alcohol dehydrogenases.Mammalian alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH) are zinc-containing enzymes with known relationships to similar enzymes in yeast, plants and other organisms [l -31. The horse enzyme constitutes the crystallographically investigated model enzyme [4] (recent review in [5]). The human enzymes form a complex system of three classes [6], which have all recently been characterized (summaries in [7 -91).