Saccharomyces cerevisiae glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPD/TDH3) promoter
Promoter of the S. cerevisiae TDH3 gene, encoding one of three glycolytic glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase isozymes. Drives strong, constitutive transcription throughout growth on glucose and is one of the most commonly used promoters for constitutive recombinant protein expression in yeast.
Origin: Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Characteristics
Contains a multi-component upstream activation sequence driving constitutive expression that is among the strongest of the native S. cerevisiae glycolytic promoters, active continuously through exponential and stationary phase on glucose. In comparative reporter vectors, expression from the GPD promoter is much less sensitive to plasmid copy number than the weaker ADH1 promoter, with beta-galactosidase activity differing only about 3-fold between high-copy (2-micron) and low-copy (CEN/ARS) vectors, versus roughly 30-fold for ADH1 under the same comparison. Commonly used together with TEF1 and ADH1 as one of three constitutive promoters of differing output for tuning expression level in vector sets.
Applications: Constitutive high-level expression of heterologous and reporter genes in S. cerevisiae, including protein production, metabolic engineering pathway construction, and as the strong option in tunable-strength promoter vector sets alongside TEF1 and ADH1.
Limitations: Constitutive activity means expression cannot be turned off or induced on demand; toxic gene products or pathway steps that must be conditionally controlled require an inducible promoter such as GAL1 instead. Native TDH3 sequence is yeast-specific and not active in mammalian or bacterial hosts.