The nucleotide sequence of approx. 3 kilobases including the regulatory region, a non-coding exon and the first protein-coding exon from mouse lactate dehydrogenase-A (LDH-A) gene has been determined. The putative initiation sites of transcription and translation were deduced by comparing the nucleotide sequence of mouse LDH-A gene with those of a mouse LDH-A processed pseudogene and the LDH-A full-length cDNAs from rat and human. The tentative TATA and CAAT boxes, and the hexanucleotides CCGCCC have been identified. The sequence of AAATCTTGCTCAA of mouse LDH-A gene has also been found to show striking homology to the cyclic AMP-responsive sequences of eukaryotic genes regulated by cyclic AMP. It has been reported previously that the protein-coding sequence of mouse LDH-A gene is interrupted by six introns and the 3' untranslated sequence of 485 nucleotides is not interrupted [Li, Tiano, Fukasawa, Yagi, Shimiza, Sharief, Nakashima & Pan (1985) Eur. J. Biochem. 149, 215-225]. An additional intron of 1653 base-pairs was found in the 5' untranslated sequence of 101 nucleotides at 24 nucleotides upstream to the translation start site. Thus, mouse LDH-A gene containing seven introns spans approx. 11 kilobases and its length of mature mRNA is 1582 nucleotides, excluding the poly(A) tail.