Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
THE CLINICAL BENEFITS DERIVED from con-trolling the hyperuricemia of patients with gouty arthritis have been well-estab-lished (1, 2). This has been achieved by using uricosuric drugs to increase the renal excretion of uric acid, thereby lowering the serum urate concentration. Since the ma-jority of patients with gout have evidence of some degree of overproduction of uric acid (3), another rational approach to ther-apy would be to decrease uric acid produc-tion. A decrease in purine biosynthesis in the human has been produced by the ad-ministration of the glutamine analogues 6-diazo-5 oxo-L-norleucine (DON) (4) and azaserine (5), which block an early stage of purine biosynthesis; however, toxic side effects precluded their clinical use. Inhi-Received October 15, 1964; accepted for publi-
James R. Klinenberg (1965) studied this question.