Figure 1.

Conversion of glucose to erythritol via the pentose phosphate pathway. Stable isotope tracers indicated that glucose was converted to erythritol through the pentose phosphate pathway in human cells (3). Here we demonstrate that the substrate for erythritol synthesis is erythrose, not erythrose-4-phosphate and that the required cofactor in human cells is NADPH. In addition, this reaction is catalyzed by ADH1 and SORD. F6P, fructose 6-phosphate; G3P, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate; G6P, glucose 6-phosphate; R5P, ribose 5-phosphate; S7P, sedoheptulose 7-phosphate; X5P, xylulose 5-phosphate.