Adenine aminohydrolase: occurrence and possible significance in trypanosomid flagellates

Adenine aminohydrolase (EC 3.5.4.2) from four species of Leishmania and from Crithidia fasciculata was examined for specific activities, affinity for substrate (adenine), and stability to heat. All were found to be strongly and non-competitively inhibited by both coformycin and deoxycoformycin, two tight-binding inhibitors of adenosine deaminase (adenosine aminohydrolase, EC 3.5.4.4). Deoxycoformycin is the more potent inhibitor of the two. Neither inhibitor was active against the purine phosphoribosyltransferases. When deoxycoformycin was added to the defined growth medium containing hypoxanthine as the purine source, the growth of C. fasciculata was unaffected, but when adenine was the purine source for the organism, severe inhibition resulted. This implies that hypoxanthine is the obligatory base for nucleotide synthesis and that the adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (AMP:pyrophosphate phosphoribosyltransferase, EC 2.4.2.7) is, in some manner,idenied access to exogenous substrate.