THE INFLUENCE OF PROTEIN INTAKE UPON

THE INFLUENCE OF PROTEIN INTAKE UPON THE
FORMATION OF URIC ACID.
BY A. E. TAYLOR AND W. c. ROSE.
(From the Department of Physiological Chemistry, University of
Pennsylvania,)
(Received for publication, June 22, 1914.)
The relation of the common protein metabolism to that of pu-
rine is still a matter of controversy. While there is a quite gen-
eral agreement that the purines of the urine represent the end-
product of nucleic catabolism (disregarding the hypoxanthine
catabolism of muscle) and in this sense are independent of the com-
mon protein catabolism, there is still evidence that in some in-
direct manner the magnitude of the protein metabolism may exert
an influence upon the output of purine. The experiment to be
herein reported furnishes an additional illustration of this fact.
The subject of the experiment was a healthy man, whose metabo-
lism has been often studied, and whose endogenous purine-nitro-
gen upon a purine-free diet of moderate nitrogen content was
known to run from 0.075 to 0.100 gram.
The experiment consisted
of a fore-period, in which the subject subsisted upon a practically
nitrogen-free diet of purified starch and cane sugar, of a heat value
of 2200 calories. Then the man for a period of four days ingested
as heavily of white of egg as possible (over 40 grams nitrogen),
sugar being added to the diet to make the input of calories equal to
that in the first period. The nitrogen, uric acid and creatinine
were estimated, the first by the method of Kjeldahl, the others by
the calorimetric methods of Folin. The results were as follows:
by guest on April 28, 2015 from
520
Protein Intake and Uric Acid Formation

7.4
0.28
0.63
6.1 0.31 0.62
5.4 0.26 0.59
4.6
0.30
0.66
18.6 0.48 0.65
25.3 0.52 0.71
28.6
0.78
0.69
30.2
0.82
0.68
The
output
of the uric acid was nearly three times as large upon
the heavy purine-free protein diet as upon the protein-free diet.
The explanation is not at hand, but two general considerations
deserve mention. It is possible, since nucleic acid is synthesized,
directly or indirectly, from components of protein, that when the
body is flooded with amino-acids, nucleic anabolism and catab-
olism are exaggerated-an application of the law of mass action.
It is possible also to interpret the increased output of uric acid
merely as the expression of overwork, the result of the excessive
activity of grandular cells in the digestion, assimilation and catab-
olism of the unusual input of protein. This experiment was un-
dertaken because, in some other experiments we had failed t’o

observe any influence of moderate variations in the protein of the
diet upon the uric acid output.
Evidently an unusual excess of
protein input is required to provoke the phenomenon.
Interesting is the relative constancy of output of creatinine dur-
ing the experiment, confirming in general the modern idea of the
specificity of this metabolism.
by guest on April 28, 2015 from
A. E. Taylor and W. C. Rose

URIC ACID
INTAKE UPON THE FORMATION OF
THE INFLUENCE OF PROTEIN
ARTICLE:
1914, 18:519-520.J. Biol. Chem.

/>Access the most updated version of this article at

.Sites
JBC AffinityClassics on similar topics on the
Find articles, minireviews, Reflections and
Alerts:

When a correction for this article is posted•
When this article is cited•
alerts
to choose from all of JBC's e-mailClick here

ml#ref-list-1
/>accessed free at

This article cites 0 references, 0 of which can be
by guest on April 28, 2015 from