Some regulatory and integrative aspects of purine nucleotide biosynthesis and its control: an overview

The regulation and integration of purine nucleotide biosynthesis is considered from the viewpoint of the main groups of reaction sequences involved and with respect to some specific organs and tissues. Inhibiting either IMP dehydrogenase or adenylosuccinate synthetase in rat liver in vitro reduced the rate of purine do novo synthesis with respect to the purine remaining in the tissue and did not materially affect the rate with respect to the purines extruded into the incubation medium. These results are considered in contrast to the results of previous studies in cultured lymphoblasts. The relative activities of purine de novo synthesis and of purine salvage have been assessed in different tissues by the activities of amidophosphoribosyltransferase and hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT), respectively. Changes in purine de novo synthesis as measured by [14C]formate incorporation into cellular purines were reflected in the amidophosphoribosyltransferase activities. The capacity of different tissues to synthesize purines de novo is widespread and the role of the liver as the main site of purine de novo synthesis in vivo and exporting purines to other tissues appears questionable. Regulatory mechanisms may well be tissue specific. The age-related changes in the activity of the purine de novo synthesis and purine salvage pathways, respectively, in the brain suggest that it is physiological or neuropharmacological functions of the developed brain rather than cell division and organogenesis which require a high level of purine salvage relative to purine de novo synthesis. This is compatible with the observation that purine de novo synthesis alone can meet the needs for additional purine nucleotides which lectin induced lymphocyte transformation involves. The mechanism whereby purine de novo synthesis is initiated during lectin induced lymphoblast transformation remains obscure.