Properties of the phosphoribosylpyrophosphate-glutamine amidotransferase of the human leucemic cells.

Abstract

The biosynthesis of purine nucleotides may be produced from two alternative routes, de novo and “salvage” pathway. From the investigations of SCOTT et al. (1) it is known that the novo pathway of purine synthesis is incomplete in leucocytes, and the incorporation of (14C)-formate only served to close the purine ring of the otherwise complete precursor. Therefore the statements about the existence of such a pathway in the normal and leukemic blast blast cells are different. Recently, REEM (2) demonstrated two alternative pathways of purine de novo synthesis in normal spleen and leukemic lymphoblasts by determination of two enzyme activities which catalyse phosphoribosylamine.