In order to study the mutational inactivation of deoxycytidine kinase (Dck) in a rat model for acute myeloid leukemia we have cloned the complete coding region of the rat Dck gene. Using primers chosen from the human Dck cDNA sequence, we obtained a rat-specific probe via PCR and used it to isolate two clones from a rat lymphocyte cDNA library. The ORF showed 89.7 and 92.2% nucleotide identity with the human and mouse Dck, respectively, and encodes a 260-amino-acid protein, that is 91.9 and 94.6% homologous to human and mouse Dck, respectively. Northern blot analysis of rat tissues revealed high expression of a 4.1-kb Dck transcript in the thymus, whereas spleen, liver and lung samples showed weak expression of the gene. This tissue-specific expression pattern was confirmed by cDNA-PCR analysis.