The role of bound thiamine pyrophosphate in the synthesis of thiamine triphosphate in rat liver.

Thiamine pyrophosphate-ATP phosphoryltransferase, the enzyme that catalyzes the synthesis of thiamine triphosphate, has been found in the supernatant fraction of rat liver. The substrate for the enzyme is endogenous, bound thiamine pyrophosphate, since the addition of exogenous thiamine pyrophosphate had no effect. Thus, when a rat liver supernatant was incubated with gamma-labelled [32P]ATP, thiamine [32P]triphosphate was formed whereas the incubation of thiamine [32P]pyrophosphate with ATP did not produce thiamine [32P]triphosphate. The endogenous thiamine pyrophosphate was found to be bound to a high molecular weight protein which comes out in the void volume of Sephadex G-75, and is not dialyzable. The activity that catalyzes the formation of thiamine triphosphate has an optimum pH between 6 and 6.5, a linear time course of thiamine triphosphate synthesis up to 30 min, and is not affected by Ca2+, cyclic GMP and sulfhydryl reagents.