Short chain l-3-hydroxyacyl CoA dehydrogenase
(SCHAD) is a soluble dimeric enzyme critical for oxidative
metabolism of fatty acids. Its primary sequence has been
reported to be conserved across numerous tissues and species
with the notable exception of the pig heart homologue.
Preliminary efforts to solve the crystal structure of the
dimeric pig heart SCHAD suggested the unprecedented occurrence
of three enzyme subunits within the asymmetric unit, a
phenomenon that was thought to have hampered refinement
of the initial chain tracing. The recently solved crystal
coordinates of human heart SCHAD facilitated a molecular
replacement solution to the pig heart SCHAD data. Refinement
of the model, in conjunction with the nucleotide sequence
for pig heart SCHAD determined in this paper, has demonstrated
that the previously published pig heart SCHAD sequence
was incorrect. Presented here are the corrected amino acid
sequence and the high resolution crystal structure determined
for pig heart SCHAD complexed with its NAD+
cofactor (2.8 Å; Rcryst = 22.4%,
Rfree = 28.8%). In addition, the peculiar
phenomenon of a dimeric enzyme crystallizing with three
subunits contained in the asymmetric unit is described.