Urate production in heterozygotes for glucose-6-phosphatase deficiency.

Urate production and excretion were studied in heterozygous parents of a child with glucose-6-phosphatase deficiency. Both parents demonstrated glucose-6-phosphatase concentrations in platelets intermediate between those in the homozygote and the normal. The miscible urate pool and turnover rate, the rate of incorporation of [14C]glycine into urate, the renal clearance of urate and the percentage excretion of labelled urate by the renal route were within the normal range in both heterozygotes, as were the serum cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations. Thus, a partial deficiency of glucose-6-phosphatase was not associated with the abnormalities of urate or lipoprotein metabolism which are features of homozygous glucose-6-phosphatase deficiency. Erythrocyte phosphoribosyl-pyrophosphate concentration, an increased concentration of which has been postulated as the mechanism responsible for the increased de novo purine biosynthesis in glucose-6-phosphatase deficiency, was found to be within the normal range in erythrocytes from both a homozygote and a heterozygote for this condition.