Purification and characterization of a cofactor that controls the oxidative phase of the pentose phosphate cycle in liver and other tissues of rat.

We have recently reported the presence, in rat liver, of a cofactor characterized as a protein of Mr 10(5), which cooperates with GSSG to prevent the inhibition of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase by NADPH. The inhibition that this coenzyme also exerts on 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase is similarly prevented by a cofactor-GSSG system. The activity of the cofactor increases in the livers of rats fed on carbohydrate-rich diets. Purification of the components in rat liver homogenate by ion-exchange chromatography and preparative polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis showed that the deinhibitory effect on both dehydrogenases is exerted by the same cofactor. The purified cofactor appeared as a unique protein of Mr 37.10(3) in SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Rat kidney and adipose tissue were the only nonhepatic tissues showing a cofactor-GSSG deinhibitory effect on both dehydrogenases of the oxidative phase of the pentose phosphate cycle. The deinhibitory activity, also corresponding with a cellular component of Mr 10(5), was only diet-inducible in adipose tissue. The neutralization of the kidney and adipose tissue deinhibitory activity by rat liver cofactor antibodies suggested that there was a structural relationship between the cofactors prepared from these tissues.