Spectrophotometric and radioenzymatic determination of ribose-5-phosphate

The present work describes an assay which is highly specific for ribose-5-phosphate. The method is based on the following three-stage enzymatic conversion: (1) ribose 5-phosphate in equilibrium ribose 1-phosphate (phosphopentomutase); (2) ribose 1-phosphate + adenine in equilibrium adenosine + Pi (adenosine phosphorylase); (3) adenosine + H2O----inosine + NH3 (adenosine deaminase). Ribose 5-phosphate may be determined either directly following the change in absorbance at 265 nm associated with the conversion of adenine to inosine, or radioenzymatically by measuring the radioactivity of inosine formed from [8-14C]adenine, after chromatographic separation of the nucleoside on polyethyleneimine-cellulose. The spectrophotometric assay was used to follow ribose 5-phosphate formation and ribose 1-phosphate consumption catalyzed by phosphopentomutase. Further, the ability of alkaline phosphatase, 5'-nucleotidase and crude extract of Bacillus cereus cells to act on ribose 5-phosphate was tested. The radioenzymatic assay was proved useful in determining the levels of ribose 5-phosphate in rat tissues.