It has been shown recently that glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPD) is one of the three major RNA-binding proteins ofrabbit reticulocytes [Ryazanov, A. G. (1985) FEBS Lett. 192,131 -1341. It was suggested that, due to its RNA-binding capacity, GAPD can form loose dynamic complexes with polyribosomes.This communication reports that a considerable amount of GAPD activity can be found in the mono-and polyribosome fraction after sucrose gradient centrifugation of rabbit reticulocyte lysate. An increase of ionic strength, as well as the addition of exogenous RNA to the extract, result in the removal of GAPD from the complex with mono-and polyribosomes. It appears that GAPD forms the complex with polyribosomes due to the interaction with some exposed RNA regions of these structures. Although the interaction of GAPD with ribosomes is weak, it can be detected under physiological ionic conditions by the difference boundary sedimentation velocity technique.Association of GAPD with mono-and polyribosomes can be prevented by a low concentration (10 pM) of NADH, but not NAD'. A nitrocellulose filter binding assay also shows that NADH has a stronger inhibitory effect on the enzyme-RNA complex formation, as compared with NAD'.We propose that the RNA-mediated association of GAPD with mono-and polyribosomes can provide compartmentation of the energy-supplying system on these structures within the cell. This can maintain a high local concentration of ATP and GTP near the sites of protein synthesis.In the cytoplasm of a eukaryotic cell there is a fraction of proteins with an affinity for high-polymer polynucleotides (RNA-binding proteins). This fraction contains the proteins of the translation machinery, such as elongation and initiation factors and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (see reviews [I -31).The nonspecific affinity for RNA is a characteristic feature of the eukaryotic proteins involved in translation, whereas the prokaryotic elongation factors and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases have no affinity for RNA [l-31. Elongation factors, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases and some other RNAbinding proteins can form loose complexes with mono-and polyribosomes due to their RNA-binding capacity (see reviews [l -31). This suggests that the nonspecific affinity for RNA can result in compartmentation of proteins of the translational apparatus on polyribosomes in a large and intricately arranged eukaryotic cell [l -41. According to SDS-electrophoresis data, RNA-binding proteins of rabbit reticulocytes contain three major components (molecular mass 96 kDa, 49 kDa and 36 kDa) and many minor ones [5]. The 96-kDa and 49-kDa polypeptides have been identified previously as elongation factors EF-2 and EF-la, respectively [6, 71. The third major component, the 36-kDa polypeptide, has been identified as a glycolytic enzyme, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPD) [81.