Neutrophil plasma membranes from patients with the X-linked and autosomal recessive forms of chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) that lack cytochrome b are incapable of generating superoxide anion (O2-) in vivo and in vitro. The O2- generating activity of these defective membranes was reconstituted with the addition of partially purified human neutrophil cytochrome b in a detergent-based, cell-free activation system. Depending on the detergent system used, 50% to 100% of the activity of control membranes was recovered, and this activity was directly dependent on the cytochrome b concentration. However, when cytochrome b was purified to 99% homogeneity, the reconstitutive capacity of the cytochrome was lost, possibly because of subtle denaturation of the cytochrome or the removal of an additional required cofactor. Examination of the latter possibility with respect to a protein known to coassociate with the cytochrome, ie, Rap1A, indicated that this ras-like protein was present in the partially purified cytochrome preparation used to reconstitute activity in CGD membranes, but was missing in the highly purified preparation. However, the finding that Rap1A was present in normal amounts in the neutrophil membranes from all four major types of CGD (including those missing cytochrome b) suggested that the conditions required of the reconstitution assay did not favor the reassociation of the membrane-derived Rap1A with exogenously added cytochrome b or that another unidentified membrane component was lost during the final purification step. The normal expression of Rap1A in CGD cell membranes also indicates that this protein is not responsible for the absence of O2- production in the X-linked and autosomal recessive cytochrome b-negative forms of CGD. Finally, these results show that the expression of Rap1A in the plasma membrane is not dependent on the coordinate expression of cytochrome b, despite the close association shown for these two proteins in the normal cell membrane.