Guanine synthesis from uric acid

As indicated in Fig. 25-18, free adenine released from catabolism of nucleic acids can be deaminated hydrolytically to hypoxanthine, and guanine can be deaminated to xanthine.328 The molybdenum-containing xanthine oxidase (Chapter 16) oxidizes hypoxanthine to xanthine and the latter on to uric acid. Some Clostridia convert purine or hypoxanthine to xanthine by the action of a selenium-containing purine hydroxylase.3283 Another reaction of xanthine occurring in some plants is conversion to the trimethylated derivative caffeine. 328b One of the physiological effects of caffeine in animals is inhibition of pyrimidine synthesis.329 However, the effect most sought by coffee drinkers may be an increase in blood pressure caused by occupancy of adenosine receptors by caffeine.330... 

Dietary purines are largely catabolized in the gut, rather than used by the body for the synthesis of nucleic acids. The end-product of purine catabolism in humans is uric add. The diet accounts f[ir less than half of the uric add appearing in the bloodstream, Most of the plasma uric add, or urate, originates from catabolism of the purines synthesized by the body (endogenous purines). The major purines are adenine and guanine. They occur mainly as nucleotides, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and guanosine triphosphate (GTP), and as parts of nucleic acids. For example, the adenine in (UvfA occurs as adenosine monophosphate, and the adenine in DNA occurs as deoxyadenosine monophosphate. 

Most of the free purines derived from the breakdown of DNA, RNA, and nucleotides in the diet are catabolized to xanthine and then to uric acid in the gut mucosa. The AMP and GMP biosynthesized in the body can also be bmken down to free purines, such as adenine, guanine, and hypoxanthine. These purines, in contrast to those derived frcim the diet, are largely reused for the synthesis of ATP and GTP- They are first converted back to AMP or GMP in a pathway of reutiliza-lion called the purine salvage pathway. For example, adenine phosphoribosyl-transferase (PRPP) catalyzes the conversion of adenine to AMP. Here, PRPP serves as the source of the phosphoribose group. Pyrophosphate is a product of the reaction. 

The resultant purine bases, guanine and hypo-xanthine (from AMP and dAMP), may be either salvaged (Section 16.6) or converted to xanthine. The oxidation of xanthine by xanthine oxidase yields urate (uric acid) which is excreted in the urine of man and primates. Other organisms are capable of the synthesis of various enzymes which permit the continuation of the pathway to various end products, e.g. allantoin in mammals, urea and glyoxylate in most fishes (not teleost fishes) and amphibians, and ammonia and COj in crustaceans. 

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