Isocitrate deyhdrogenase (IDH) is a reversible enzyme in the tricarboxylic acid cycle that catalyzes the NAD(P)(+)-dependent oxidative decarboxylation of isocitrate to α-ketoglutarate (αKG) and the NAD(P)H/CO2-dependent reductive carboxylation of αKG to isocitrate. The IDH gene from Streptococcus mutans was fused with the icd gene promoter from Escherichia coli to initiate its expression in the glutamate auxotrophic strain E. coli Δicd::kan(r) of which the icd gene has been replaced by kanamycin resistance gene. The expression of S. mutans IDH (SmIDH) may restore the wild-type phenotype of the icd-defective strain on minimal medium without glutamate. The molecular weight of SmIDH was estimated to be 70 kDa by gel filtration chromatography, suggesting a homodimeric structure. SmIDH was divalent cation-dependent and Mn(2+) was found to be the most effective cation. The optimal pH of SmIDH was 7.8 and the maximum activity was around 45°C. SmIDH was completely NAD(+) dependent and its apparent Km for NAD(+) was 137 μM. In order to evaluate the role of the putative phosphorylation site at Ser102 in catalysis, two "stably phosphorylated" mutants were constructed by converting Ser102 into Glu102 or Asp102 in SmIDH to mimick a constitutively phosphorylated state. Meanwhile, the functional roles of another four amino acids (threonine, glycine, alanine and tyrosine) containing variant size of side chains were investigated. The replacement of Asp102 or Glu102 totally inactivated the enzyme, while the S102T, S102G, S102A and S102Y mutants decreased the affinity to isocitrate and only retained 16.0%, 2.8%, 3.3% and 1.1% of the original activity, respectively. These results reveal that Ser102 plays important role in substrate binding and is required for the enzyme function. Also, Ser102 in SmIDH is a potential phosphorylation site, indicating that the ancient NAD-dependent IDHs might be the underlying origin of "phosphorylation mechanism" used by their bacterial NADP-dependent homologs.