During the past decade, the availability of gene and protein information has grown rapidly, primarily due to advances in gene-sequencing technologies. In the 2002 update of ALDH superfamily members,[10] 555 ALDH genes were listed, including 32 from Archaea, 351 from Eubacteria and 172 from Eukarya. Characteristic ALDH motifs were searched in 74 genomes: 16 in Archaea, 51 in Eubacteria and seven in Eukarya. A recent download from the current Pfam database (build version 24.0) includes 16,765 ALDH entries (listed as aldedh in the Pfam database) [11]. This update focuses on 11 representative vertebrate species in which the full genome has been sequenced: five primates, the cow, two rodents, two birds and one fish. Many of these genomes have been annotated automatically; generous algorithms list pseudogenes as protein-coding genes. This update attempts to describe the ALDH complement within these organisms and identify pseudogenes and gene-duplication events, when possible.
