Synthesis of the purine ring is a central metabolic function of all cells. The products, AMP and GMP, provide purine bases for DNA and RNA, as well as for a number of essential coenzymes (NAD, NADP, FAD, and coenzyme A) and signaling molecules (e.g. cAMP; Fig. 1). ATP serves as the energy source for many chemical reactions. In addition, in plants, the nucleotides are the precursors for purine a...

In exponentially growing cultures of the extreme halophile Halobacterium halobium and the moderate halophile Haloferax volcanii, growth characteristics including intracellular protein levels, RNA content, and nucleotide pool sizes were analyzed. This is the first report on pool sizes of nucleoside triphosphates, NAD, and PRPP (5-phosphoribosyl-alpha-1-pyrophosphate) in archaea. The presence of ...

An increasing amount of information on purine metabolism suggests that there is a continual release of some purines from resting skeletal muscle (Bockman et al., 1976). During exercise, hypoxanthine and inosine release can increase substantially (Murray, 1971). Presumably, skeletal muscle must be capable of maintaining an adequate level of purines in view of an apparent loss of purine nucleosid...

Purine metabolism was studied in fibroblasts cultured from three patients with gout in an attempt to determine the biochemical bases of their disease. The rate of purine biosynthesis de novo was normal in one line of cells, but the rate of catabolism of adenine nucleotides to hypoxanthine and inosine was greatly increased. The rate of purine biosynthesis de novo was increased in two lines of ce...

Purine repeats are randomly distributed in the human genome, however, they show potential role in the transcriptional deregulation of genes. Presence of long tracks of purine repeats in the genome can disturb its integrity and interfere with the cellular behavior by introducing mutations and/or triple stranded structure formation in DNA. Our data revealed interesting finding that a majority of ...

Four new purine alkaloids, namely, 6-(1'-purine-6',8'-dionyl)suberosanone ( 1), 3,9-(2-imino-1-methyl-4-imidazolidinone-5-yl)isopropenylpurine-6,8-dione ( 2), 1-(3'-carbonylbutyl)purine-6,8-dione ( 3), and 9-(3'-carbonylbutyl)purine-6,8-dione ( 4), together with three known compounds, guanosine ( 5), thymidine ( 6), and adenosine ( 7), were isolated from the EtOH/CH 2Cl 2 extracts of the South ...

In addition to the bound purine moieties of DNA and RNA, plants and animals contain a variety of other purine derivatives ranging in decreasing structural complexity from free nucleotides to simple substituted bases. Many of these compounds play important roles in metabolism and in its control and integration. Whereas most of the purine derivatives found in animal tissues also occur in plants, ...

1. We have compared urinary purine excretion by two different methods in three separate paediatric disorders of purine metabolism: purine nucleo­ side phosphoryiase deficiency, adenosine deaminase deficiency and adenine phosphoribosyltransferase deficiency. 2. The abnormal purines identified in each case were specific for the defect and directly related to it: adenine in adenine phophoribosyltr...

The biosynthetic pathways and multiple functions of purine nucleotides are well known. However, the pathways that respond to alterations in purine nucleotide synthesis in vivo in an animal model organism have not been identified. We examined the effects of inhibiting purine de novo synthesis in vivo and in cultured cells of Drosophila melanogaster. The purine de novo synthesis gene ade2 encodes...

OBJECTIVE To examine and quantify the relation between purine intake and the risk of recurrent gout attacks among gout patients. METHODS The authors conducted a case-crossover study to examine associations of a set of putative risk factors with recurrent gout attacks. Individuals with gout were prospectively recruited and followed online for 1 year. Participants were asked about the following...