Antiserum directed against bovine heart mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase has been used to screen a rat liver cDNA expression library in lambda gt11. The insert cDNA of a positive clone was found to represent the 24-kDa subunit of NADH dehydrogenase by epitope selection using nitrocellulose filter containing the expressed proteins. The amino acid sequence deduced from the nucleotide sequence of the cloned cDNA indicated that the 24-kDa subunit is produced as a precursor with an amino-terminal extension, and that its mature form consists of 217 amino acid residues with a molecular weight of 23,933.