The profile and normal concentrations of nucleotide metabolites in human saliva and reproducibility of these determinations were analyzed. Samples of human saliva collected from healthy individuals at weekly intervals, were deproteinized and analysed for the content of adenine nucleotides and their metabolites by reversed-phase HPLC. Initial ATP, hypoxanthine and uric acid concentrations were 0.52 ± 0.15 μM, 1.91 ± 0.37 μM and 184 ± 22 μM respectively. A substantial individual variation persisted within 3 weeks of sampling excepted hypoxanthine which showed some unrelated variations. Determination of nucleotides and their catabolites in saliva due to its simplicity and reproducibility, may be of clinical value in diagnosis of local or systemic disorders.
The 6-oxopurine xanthine (Xan, neutral form 2,6-diketopurine) differs from the corresponding 6-oxopurines guanine (Gua) and hypoxanthine (Hyp) in that, at physiological pH, it consists of a ≈ 1:1 equilibrium mixture of the neutral and monoanionic forms, the latter due to ionization of N(3)-H, in striking contrast to dissociation of the N(1)-H in both Gua and Hyp at higher pH. In xanthosine (Xao) and its nucleotides the xanthine ring is predominantly, or exclusively, a similar monoanion at physiological pH. The foregoing has, somewhat surprisingly, been widely overlooked in studies on the properties of these compounds in various enzyme systems and metabolic pathways, including, amongst others, xanthine oxidase, purine phosphoribosyltransferases, IMP dehydrogenases, purine nucleoside phosphorylases, nucleoside hydrolases, the enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of caffeine, the development of xanthine nucleotide-directed G proteins, the pharmacological properties of alkylxanthines. We here review the acid/base properties of xanthine, its nucleosides and nucleotides, their N-alkyl derivatives and other analogues, and their relevance to studies on the foregoing. Included also is a survey of the pH-dependent helical forms of polyxanthylic acid, poly(X), its ability to form helical complexes with a broad range of other synthetic homopolynucleotides, the base pairing properties of xanthine in synthetic oligonucleotides, and in damaged DNA, as well as enzymes involved in circumventing the existence of xanthine in natural DNA.
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