96 



AARON BENDICH 



absence of guanase in swine'" and of uricase in the human'" and the very low solu- 

 bility of guanine and uric acid (mono sodium salt) serve to explain, in part, the accu- 

 mulation of these purines often seen in gout (see Gutman'" Bauer and Kl'emperer'^^ 

 for an extensive description of human gout and the participation of uric acid in this 

 disease). Uric acid gout also affects the bird.'" Originally mistaken for uric acid,'^* 

 the extremely insoluble 2,8-dihydroxyadenine (XXIII)^'. >" deposits in crystalline 

 condition in the kidney tubules of the rat'^o. 'S' following massive administration of 

 adenine. 



Uric acid (XXIV) 1^2 has received a much more extensive treatment in 

 the Hterature than any other purine^"" "-^o. us. "s.ies (^f. also General Ref- 

 erences). It is the chief end-product of purine (and protein) metabolism in a 

 great many, but not all, animal species. Perhaps less well known is its pres- 

 ence in plants^^i^* and in the wings of certain butterfhes-^^'i^^ev in addi- 

 tion to its distribution in a variety of body fluids, uric acid is also found in 

 large amounts as a D-riboside in beef and human red corpusclesi**-"" and in 

 traces in those of other animal species. On the basis of ultraviolet spectral 

 properties, the ribose radical of a uric acid riboside from beef blood and 

 liver was suggested to be situated at position 9 of the purine.^" Another 

 preparation of uric acid riboside from beef erythrocytes possesses different 

 spectral properties. 1^2 Yot a synthesis of uric acid, see below. 



In 1897, Fischer transformed uric acid into isoguanine (XXV), or 2- 

 hydroxyadenine) and considered it not unlikely^^ that the latter might be 



'" W. Jones and C. R. Austrian, Z. physiol. Chem. 48, 110 (1906). 



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p. 683. Saunders, Philadelphia, 1952. 

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(1950). 



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/. prakt. Chem. [2] 145, 65 (1936).) 

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'«8 A. R. Davis, E. B. Newton, and S. R. Benedict, /. Biol. Chem. 54, 595 (1922). 

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