Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
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Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. · Jan 1978
Deoxyadenosine triphosphate as a potentially toxic metabolite in adenosine deaminase deficiency.
The inherited deficiency of adenosine deaminase (adenosine aminohydrolase; EC 3.5.4.4) activity in humans is associated with an immunodeficiency. Some of the immunodeficient and enzyme-deficient patients respond immunologically to periodic infusions of irradiated erythrocytes containing adenosine deaminase. ⋯ The erythrocyte dATP in two unrelated adenosine deaminase-deficient, immunodeficient patients disappeared after infusion of normal erythrocytes. We propose that deoxyadenosine, a substrate of adenosine deaminase, is the potentially toxic substrate in adenosine deaminase deficiency, and that the mediator of the toxic effect is dATP, a recognized potent inhibitor of ribonucleotide reductase.