Ubiquity of stimulation of endogenous respiration by purines & purine analogs

Abstract

A previously reported stimulation of the endogenous respiration of N starved Chlorella cells has been extended. It has been found that a long list of algae and several yeasts and higher plant tissues also showed a similar response to added purines when the tissues or cells were N-starved. In all these cases the stimulation of respiration with purines was not due to the oxidation of the purines, nor could it be explained by the release of inorganic N from the partial degradation of the purines. There appeared to be a good correlation between tissues which were active in this system and those tissues which had been previously shown to accumulate fat upon N starvation.