Polyethylene sulfonate: a tight-binding inhibitor of 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase of Cryptococcus neoformans.

Polyethylene sulfonate (PES) or polyvinyl sulfonate was found to be a potent inhibitor of a number of fungal enzymes, including 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase from Cryptococcus neoformans. The inhibition was apparently competitive versus either NADP or 6-phosphogluconate, with 50% inhibition at PES concentrations below 10 nM. Replots of slopes of double-reciprocal plots versus inhibitor concentration were sharply concave upward, whereas replots of slope versus [PES]3 were linear. The inhibition was freely reversible upon dilution of the enzyme-PES complex. A model is presented that involves initial binding of the long (M(r) 50,000) polyanionic PES at a remote site on the enzyme, followed by interaction of the end of the tethered polymer with the binding site for NADP or for 6-phosphogluconate.