Assembly and deacetylation of N-acetylglucosaminyl-plasmanylinositol in normal and affected paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria cells.

Decay-accelerating factor (DAF) is anchored in cell membranes by a glycosyl-plasmanylinositol (GPI) moiety that is transferred to it en bloc in the rough endoplasmic reticulum. To analyze the biochemical reactions involved in preassembly of this structure, a human hematopoietic cell-free system was employed. Incubation of cell extracts with UDP-[3H]GlcNAc and butanol partitioning of reaction mixtures yielded two products similar in TLC mobility to intermediates described in Trypanosoma brucei. Both species were sensitive to Bacillus thuringiensis phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C, indicative of association of [3H]GlcNAc label with a plasmanylinositol-containing acceptor. In contrast to trypanosome intermediates, which contain phosphatidylinositol (1,2-diacylglycerophosphoinositol), however, alkali treatment and phospholipase A2 digestion generated butanol-phase products characteristic of glycosylated plasmanylinositol (1-alkyl-2-acylglycerophosphoinositol). Kinetic and pulse-chase experiments indicated that the slower-migrating species was a product of the faster and that it, but not the faster, was sensitive to both GPI-specific phospholipase D and nitrous acid deamination, consistent with conversion of GlcNAc- to GlcN-plasmanylinositol. Accordingly, acetic anhydride acetylation retransformed the slower species back to the faster. Further incubation with cell extracts converted the slower species into more polar products. Lysates of normal and of affected blood leukocytes from two paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) patients supported assembly of the two intermediates within 1 min. Thus, the initial enzymes mediating human GPI-anchor assembly are GlcNAc-plasmanylinositol transferase and GlcNAc-plasmanylinositol deacetylase, their substrates contain plasmanylinositols, and the products of their activities are normal in affected PNH cells.