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Three brothers who developed acute gouty arthritis at ages 16, 20 and 26 years were found to have increased plasma urate. Erythrocyte hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT) activity was less than 1% of normal and adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (APRT) activity was increased 2-3-fold. This variant, HPRTEdinburgh, was further studied using lymphoblast lines established from these patients and the following observations are consistent with a mutation involving a single amino acid substitution. Lymphoblasts from these patients had 0.9-1.6% of control HPRT activity which was 8-fold more labile than control activity at 75 degrees C. Isoelectric focusing of the variant protein in polyacrylamide gels indicated a pI of 6.5-6.7 which is more basic than normal HPRT, pI 6.0-6.3. The Michaelis constants were increased: 10-fold for hypoxanthine from 1.3 to 13 mumol/L, and 5-fold for PP-ribose-P from 6 to 30 mumol/L, for control and variant respectively. The Ki for product inhibition by GMP was marginally increased in the variant. Northern blot analysis of variant lymphoblast RNA indicated normal amounts of the expected 1.6 kilobase messenger RNA.

A method is described for the estimation of hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase using high performance liquid chromatography. The inosine monophosphate (IMP) generated from hypoxanthine is determined, after separation on a C18 reversed phase silica column with a buffer-methanol gradient, by the absorbance at 254 nm. Simultaneous reciprocal measurement of hypoxanthine consumption is made. The assay is suitable for screening red cell lysates for hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase deficiency; the results being expressed as nmol inosine monophosphate . h-1. mg-1 haemoglobin. The normal range found was 94 +/- 15 nmol IMP . h-1 . mg-1 haemoglobin and hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase activities down to 1% of normal can be assayed accurately.

DNA polymorphisms associated with adult polycystic kidney disease and detected by restriction enzymes PvuII and RsaI were sought in 18 members of a Greek Cypriot family. The adult polycystic kidney disease (APKD) defect was shown to segregate with a specific 3'HVR PvuII DNA polymorphism and enabled exclusion of APKD in two children incorrectly diagnosed by ultrasound. An unusual problem of the DNA linkage approach in detection of APKD is illustrated. This occurred after coinheritance of alpha+ thalassaemia and APKD, which resulted in an altered band size for the (+) RsaI restriction fragment length polymorphism.

A method for the measurement of erythrocyte 5-phosphoribosyl 1-pyrophosphate (PP-ribose-P) using HPLC is described. Inosinic acid formed from the enzyme-catalyzed reaction of hypoxanthine and PP-ribose-P using partially purified hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase is measured after chromatography on an ion-exchange column (Partisil 10 SAX). The average recovery of PP-ribose-P added to erythrocytes was 96.6%. Normal values found were 1.3 +/- 0.6 nmol PP-ribose-P/ml packed RBC (20 individuals). Replication experiments gave a coefficient of variation of 4.4%. Elevated levels in the range 4.4-7.9 nmol PP-ribose-P/ml packed RBC were found in four patients with gout and partial deficiency of the enzyme hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase.