Xanthine toxicity to caterpillars synergized by allopurinol, a xanthine dehydrogenase/oxidase inhibitor.

Xanthine (2,6-dioxypurine), which occurs in certain legumes and other plants, was fed in artificial diet to larvae of two noctuid moth species, a legume specialist,Anticarsia gemmatalis, and a generalist,Spodoptera frugiperda. In addition, diets either lacked or contained allopurinol (4-hydroxypyrazolo(3,4-d)-pyrimidine), an inhibitor of xanthine dehydrogenase and oxidase, enzymes that convert xanthine to uric acid. Xanthine alone (up to 2% fresh mass, fm) had little deleterious effect on either species, whereas allopurinol alone (up to 1% fm) had moderate but significant effects, increasing mortality, slowing development, and reducing insect biomass. At 0.5% fm allopurinol, the decrease in biomass-relative growth rate (RGR) was associated with reductions in the efficiency of conversion to biomass of digested food (ECD; both species) and in the biomass-relative consumption rate (RCR;A. gemmatalis). In addition, pupae of each species from allopurinol-fed larvae had increased water retention (i.e., lower percentage dry mass) compared with insects consuming control diet. When fed diet containing both compounds (1% fm xanthin+0.5% fm allopurinol), noA. gemmatalis and only 40% ofS. frugiperda larvae reached the prepupal stage; additionally for the latter species, there was a substantial slowing of growth and reductions in final biomass, RGR, RCR, and ECD. These results indicate a synergistic interaction, in which the effects of xanthine and allopurinol combined in the diet were significantly greater than the additive effects of each compound tested separately. Presumably, the inhibition of xanthine dehydrogenase by allopurinol prevented the absorbed xanthine from being converted to uric acid and excreted. In addition, this study expands the phenomenon of phytochemical detoxification by insects to include xanthine dehydrogenase, an enzyme generally not considered within this context.