Oxidative inactivation of the calcium-stimulated neutral proteinase from human red blood cells by divicine and intracellular protection by reduced glutathione.

Calpain, the micromolar Ca2+-requiring form of Ca2+-stimulated neutral proteinase purified from human red cells, is remarkably inactivated during autoxidation of divicine (2,6-diamino-4,5-dihydroxypyrimidine), an aglycone implicated in the pathogenesis of favism. Inactivation of purified calpain is produced, in decreasing order of efficiency, by transient, probably semiquinonic species arising from autoxidation of divicine, by the H2O2 that is formed upon autoxidation itself, and by quinonic divicine, respectively. Purified procalpain, the millimolar Ca2+-requiring form that can be converted to the fully active calpain form by a variety of mechanisms, is less susceptible than calpain itself to inactivation by the same by-products of divicine autoxidation. When intact red cells are exposed to autoxidizing divicine, procalpain undergoes a significant loss of activity. At 1 mM divicine, intracellular inactivation is observed with procalpain only, while the activity of a number of red cell enzymes is unaffected. Inactivation of procalpain is consistently greater in red cells from glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase-deficient subjects than in normal cells. Restoration of normal levels of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase activity by means of entrapment of homogeneous human glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase in the deficient red cells results in normal stability of intracellular reduced glutathione; decreased susceptibility of procalpain to inactivation by autoxidizing divicine. These findings suggest that in the glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase-deficient red cells the procalpain-calpain system is a major target of divicine cytotoxicity.