The Qm family of proteins, which are found in a wide variety of species such as budding yeast, plants and humans, are believed to play a role in gene expression. Here, we report the isolation ofaa gene, spqM, from the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, whose deduced amino-acid sequence shared 71.6 to 61.36% identity with members of the Qm family. The high degree of conservation of the Qm members suggest that they were selectively conserved, because of an important biological role.