Dependence of Bone Marrow Cells on the Liver for Purine Supply

Abstract

IT is well known that higher organisms can utilize the carbon atom of formate molecules for the synthesis of purines, as indeed can liver tissue in vitro. However, in rabbit and human bone marrows and in Ehrlich ascites cells of the mouse, formate-¹⁴C was found to be utilized very inefficiently for de novo synthesis of purines in vitro, but very efficiently for labelling thymine in deoxyribonucleic acid^1–3. As liver extracts restore the ability of these cells to synthesize purines in vitro ⁴, it was suggested that, in vivo, the capacity of bone marrow cells for synthesis of purines may be so limited that they depend on the liver for the supply of purines. This inference was tested experimentally by measuring the amount of formate-¹⁴C incorporated into the deoxyribonucleic acid bases of bone marrow cells in control and hepatectomized rabbits.