NADP-binding proteins causing reduced availability and sigmoid release of NADP+ in human erythrocytes

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase catalyzes the initial and rate-limiting step of the pathway that is the principal source of NADPH in many cells. Earlier studies of cells from several species indicated that the intracellular enzyme is under severe and unexplained restraint or inhibition. Moreover, the intracellular enzyme of human erythrocytes exhibits sigmoid kinetics, whereas the purified enzyme exhibits only classical kinetics. We here report that most of the NADP in the human erythrocyte is bound by soluble proteins. In addition, the fraction of unbound NADP that is in the oxidized form, [NADP+]/[NADP], varies in a sigmoid manner relative to the fraction of bound NADP that is in the oxidized form. These features of intracellular binding of NADP: 1) account for the previously unexplained inhibition and sigmoid kinetics of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase within human erythrocytes and 2) represent a system in which activity of a rate-limiting enzyme is largely determined by the binding and release of substrate and product by intracellular proteins other than the enzyme itself.