Immune Cell Function and Recycling of Purines

Abstract

During the course of evolution, some remarkable mechanisms have developed to ensure the cellular production of substances that are essential components of DNA and RNA. For example, two complicated series of metabolic steps, beginning with simpler compounds, are involved in the de novo synthesis of purine and pyrimidine nucleotides such as ATP by one pathway and UTP by the other. In addition, there are so-called "salvage" pathways that, under appropriate conditions, recycle the breakdown products of nucleic acids.The importance of purine salvage for metabolic homeostasis first became apparent when Lesch-Nyhan disease, an especially crippling form of gout, was found . . .