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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1976 Jan;73(1):104–108. doi: 10.1073/pnas.73.1.104

A normal level of adenosine deaminase activity in the red cell lysates of carriers and patients with severe combined immunodeficiency disease.

P P Trotta, E M Smithwick, M E Balis
PMCID: PMC335848  PMID: 1061104

Abstract

The red cell lysates of two children with severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID) exhibited a virtually total absence of adenosine deaminase (adenosine aminohydrolase, EC 3.5.4.4) when standard volumes were assayed. Under these conditions the parents exhibited depressed specific activity except for one mother, whose lysate showed a normal value for activity. Upon storage of the lysate at 4 degrees, a significant amount of activity appeared in one of the SCID children, and the activity of the heterozygous carriers was stimulated. With the use of a sensitive spectrophotometric assay based on conversion of inosine to uric acid, it was shown that the specific enzymatic activity in each of the SCID patients increased progressively as the volume of lysate assayed was lowered. With the smallest amount of lysate this specific activity was in the normal range. Similarly, the specific activity of each of the parents' lysates increased to the level of normal (or, in one case, about twice normal) as smaller volumes were assayed. The activity in the SCID patient was inhibitable by 2-fluoroadenosine and N6-methyladenosine, known competitive inhibitors of human red cell adenosine deaminase. The lysate from the SCID patient was also shown to inhibit adenosine deaminase partially purified from a normal individual. The results are interpreted in terms of a genetically programmed production of an adenosine deaminase inhibitor in at least one variant of the severe combined immunodeficiency disease.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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