A gene of the soluble fumarate reductase (FRDS) that binds FAD non-covalently was cloned by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using degenerate oligonucleotides designed from partial amino acid sequences of highly purified enzyme. The nucleotide sequence of a 0.99-kb amplified product was found to be nearly identical to a partial sequence of an open reading frame (ORF) previously reported (EMBL database accession number S-30830). According to the sequence in the EMBL database, we cloned 1.7-kb fragment containing entire sequence of this ORF by PCR and found that this fragment contained a perfect match to the 0.99-kb sequence amplified with the degenerate primers. From these results, we concluded that this ORF is the FRDS gene. The amino acid sequences of the regions involved in the non-covalent binding of FAD and the active site, which are conserved among the flavoprotein subunits of membrane-bound fumarate reductase and succinate dehydrogenase, were found in FRDS. However, unlike the membrane-bound enzymes, FRDS did not contain the histidine residue that covalently binds the isoalloxazine ring of FAD at or near the corresponding position. FRDS showed high homology to the product of S. cerevisiae OSM1 gene which was reported to be required for growth in hypertonic media.