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, 2015http://www.jbc.org/Downloaded 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, 2015http://www.jbc.org/Downloaded 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. http://www.jbc.org/content/18/3/519.citation 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 http://www.jbc.org/content/18/3/519.citation.full.ht accessed free at This article cites 0 references, 0 of which can be by guest on April 28, 2015http://www.jbc.org/Downloaded from . 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,). 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. 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