Purine Phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate

In many cells, the capacity for de novo synthesis to supply purines and pyrimidines is insufficient, and the salvage pathway is essential for adequate nucleotide synthesis. In patients with Lesch-Nyhan disease, an enzyme for purine salvage (hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate transferase, HPRT) is absent. People with this genetic deficiency have CNS deterioration, mental retardation, and spastic cerebral palsy associated with compulsive self-mutilation, Cells in the basal ganglia of the brain (fine motor control) normally have very high HPRT activity. These patients also all have hyperuricemia because purines cannot be salvaged. 

The first step of this sequence, which is not unique to de novo purine nucleotide biosynthesis, is the synthesis of 5-phosphoribosylpyrophosphate (PRPP) from ribose-5-phosphate and adenosine triphosphate. Phosphoribosyl-pyrophosphate synthetase, the enzyme that catalyses this reaction [278], is under feedback control by adenosine triphosphate [279]. Cordycepin interferes with thede novo pathway [229, 280, 281), and cordycepin triphosphate inhibits the synthesis of PRPP in extracts from Ehrlich ascites tumour cells [282]. Formycin [283], probably as the triphosphate, 9-0-D-xylofuranosyladenine [157] triphosphate, and decoyinine (LXXlll) [284-286] (p. 89) also inhibit the synthesis of PRPP in tumour cells, and this is held to be the blockade most important to their cytotoxic action. It has been suggested but not established that tubercidin (triphosphate) may also be an inhibitor of this reaction [193]. 

Among the essential amino acids, the aromatic amino acids (phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan) form by a pathway in which chorismate occupies a key branch point. Phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate is a precursor of tryptophan and histidine. The pathway to histidine is interconnected with the purine synthetic pathway Tyrosine can also be formed by hydroxylation of phenylalanine (and thus is considered conditionally essential). The pathways for the other essential amino acids are complex. 

Phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate (PRPP) is important in both, and in these pathways the structure of ribose is retained in the product nucleotide, in contrast to its fate in the tryptophan and histidine biosynthetic pathways discussed earlier. An amino acid is an important precursor in each type of pathway glycine for purines and aspartate for pyrimidines. Glutamine again is the most important source of amino groups—in five different steps in the de novo pathways. Aspartate is also used as the source of an amino group in the purine pathways, in two steps. 

Synthesis of 5 phosphoribosylamine from PRPP and glutamine is catalized by glutamine phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate amidotransferase. This enzyme is inhibited by the purine 5 -nucleotides, AMP, GMP, and IMP—the end-products of the pathway. This is the committed step in purine nucleotide biosynthesis. 

Didanosine is a synthetic purine nucleoside analog that inhibits the activity of reverse transcriptase in HIV-1, HIV-2, other retroviruses and zidovudine-resistant strains. A nucleobase carrier helps transport it into the cell where it needs to be phosphorylated by 5 -nucleoiidase and inosine 5 -monophosphate phosphotransferase to didanosine S -monophosphate. Adenylosuccinate synthetase and adenylosuccinate lyase then convert didanosine 5 -monophosphate to dideoxyadenosine S -monophosphate, followed by its conversion to diphosphate by adenylate kinase and phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate synthetase, which is then phosphorylated by creatine kinase and phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate synthetase to dideoxyadenosine S -triphosphate, the active reverse transcriptase inhibitor. Dideoxyadenosine triphosphate inhibits the activity of HIV reverse transcriptase by competing with the natural substrate, deoxyadenosine triphosphate, and its incorporation into viral DNA causes termination of viral DNA chain elongation. It is 10-100-fold less potent than zidovudine in its antiviral activity, but is more active than zidovudine in nondividing and quiescent cells. At clinically relevant doses, it is not toxic to hematopoietic precursor cells or lymphocytes, and the resistance to the drug results from site-directed mutagenesis at codons 65 and 74 of viral reverse transcriptase. 

Two enzyme abnormalities resulting in an overproduction of uric acid have been well described (Fig. 91-1). The first is an increase in the activity of phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate (PRPP) synthetase, which leads to an increased concentration of PRPP. PRPP is a key determinant of purine synthesis and thus uric acid production. The second is a deficiency of hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyl transferase (HGPRT). 

Purine salvage pathway The synthesis of purine nucleotides by the condensation of the purine bases with phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate. As the name suggests, it is a way in which purine bases can be recycled back to nucleotides. The purine salvage pathway consists of two enzymes, HGPRT and adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (APRT). 

J2. Jones, O. W., Jr., Ashton, D. M., and Wyngaarden, J. B., Accelerated turnover of phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate, a purine nucleotide precursor in certain gouty subjects. ]. Clin. Invest. 41, 1805 (1962). 

Lipstein, B., Boer, P. Sperling, O. (1978). Regulation of de novo purine synthesis in chick liver role of phosphoribosyl-pyrophosphate availability and of salvage purine nucleotide biosynthesis. Biochim Biophys. Acta, 521, 45—54. 

Formation of L-histidine is closely related to purine biosynthesis (D 10.4, Fig. 239). ATP is the actual precursor. It condenses with phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate at position 1 before the purine ring is splitted between the positions 1 and 6. An Amadori rearrangement in the two-prime-ribose unit yields the ribulose derivative l-(5 -phosphoribosyl)-4-carboxamido-5-iV-(N -5 -phospho-ribosyl)-formamidinoimidazole, which reacts with glutamine to D-erythro-imidazole glycerol phosphate (the precursor of histidine) and l-(5 -phospho-ribosyl)-4-carboxamido-5-aminoimidazole, which may be regenerated to ATP (D 10.4). 

The reaction that catalyzes the conversion of ribosyl pyrophosphate to 5 -phosphoribosylamine is likely to be the rate-limiting step in purine biosynthesis. Of course, it is difficult to pinpoint a rate-limiting step in an intact mammal, but in vitro experiments have established a feedback inhibition of glutamine phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate amino transferase by adenylic and guanylic nucleotides (ATP, ADP, GMP, GDP, and IMP). 

Caskey, C. T., D. M. Ashton, and J. B. Wyngaarden. 1964. The enzymology of feedback inhibition of glutamine phosphoribosyl-pyrophosphate amidotransferase by purine ribonucleotides. J. Biol. Chem. 239 2570. 

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram showing the proposed linkage between P5C and purine nucleotides in erythrocytes. Abbreviations are the following G-6-P, glucose 6-phosphate 6-PG, 6-phosphogluconate Ru-5-P, ribulose-5-phosphate R-5-P, ribose 5-phosphate PP-ribose-P, phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate A, adenine G, guanine Hx, hypoxanthine AMP, adenosine monophosphate GMP, guanosine monophosphate IMP, inosine monophosphate PRT, adenine phosphoribosyltransferase HGPRT, hypoxanthine, guanine phos-phoribosyltransferase.

Seasonal variations in the metabolic fate of adenine nucleotides prelabelled with [8—1-4C] adenine were examined in leaf disks prepared at 1-month intervals, over the course of 1 year, from the shoots of tea plants (Camellia sinensis L. cv. Yabukita) which were growing under natural field conditions by Fujimori et al.33 Incorporation of radioactivity into nucleic acids and catabolites of purine nucleotides was found throughout the experimental period, but incorporation into theobromine and caffeine was found only in the young leaves harvested from April to June. Methy-lation of xanthosine, 7-methylxanthine, and theobromine was catalyzed by gel-filtered leaf extracts from young shoots (April to June), but the reactions could not be detected in extracts from leaves in which no synthesis of caffeine was observed in vivo. By contrast, the activity of 5-phosphoribosyl-1-pyrophosphate synthetase was still found in leaves harvested in July and August. 

The purine and pyrimidine bases can be converted to then-respective nncleotides by reaction with 5-phosphoribosyl 1-pyrophosphate. Since these bases are not very soluble, they are not transported in the blood, so that the reactions are only of qnantitative significance in the intestine, where the bases are produced by degradation of nucleotides. In contrast, in some cells, nucleosides are converted back to nucleotides by the activity of kinase enzymes. In particular, adenosine is converted to AMP, by the action of adenosine kinase, and uridine is converted to UMP by a uridine kinase... 

Figure 10-1. Overview of purine synthesis. Details of the first two reactions and sources of the atoms of the purine ring in inosine 5 -monophosphate (IMP) are shown. PRPP, 5 -phosphoribosyl-1-pyrophosphate Gin, glutamine Gly, glycine Asp, aspartate THF, tetrahydrofolate.

Figure 10-2. Regulation of purine synthesis by the nucleotides and the intermediate, 5 -phosphoribosyl-1 -pyrophosphate (PRPP). Both feedback and feed-forward mechanisms are utilized in this intricate scheme. IMP, inosine monophosphate.

Fe/S clusters in regulatory enzymes have been proposed to act as sensors in such a manner that, upon detection of a measurand, the cluster disintegrates and activity stops. Putative examples are NO sensing by the [2Fe-2S] cluster in the terminal enzyme of heme synthesis, ferrochelatase [8], and 02 sensing by the [4Fe-4S] cluster in the regulatory enzyme of purine nucleotide biosynthesis, glutamine 5-phosphoribosyl-l-pyrophosphate amidotransferase [9], This is of course not a catalytic activity, since the cluster is destroyed in the action. 

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