Glucose-6-Phosphate in Estronase Enzyme Systems

¹ From the Chemical Laboratory, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital Research Institute, Santa Barbara, California

The estronase activity (conversion of estrone to estradiol) of rabbit red cells is more than tripled by the substitution of glucose-6-phosphate for glucose. This augmentation with glucose-6-phosphate occurs with human red cells to a somewhat lesser degree and was not observed for 11 diverse mammalian tissues studied, including those with high estronase activity like rat lung, human glandular mucosa and human epidermoid carcinoma of the lung, and those with low estronase activity like human lymph nodes and human muscle. The addition of TPN to rabbit red cells accelerated the action of glucose but not glucose-6-phosphate with and without glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase.