PURINE PHOSPHORIBOSYLTRANSFERASES OF CRITHIDIA-FASCICULATA

The purine phosphoribosyltransferases of Crithidia fasciculata were identified and some of their properties described. The organism possesses three separate enzymes for the production of AMP, IMP, and GMP. The evidence for this comes from the observed differences in elution patterns from gel filtration columns, differences in heat sensitivity, and expecially the clear separation of hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase from guanine phosphoribosyltransferase by affinity chromatography on GMP-agarose. APRTase is activated most efficiently by Zn++, whereas HPRTase and GPRTase are activated most efficiently by Co++. In no case did the product mononucleotides produce strong inhibition of the transferase activities.