What is it about?
Xanthine oxidase, the enzyme that produces uric acid in the body, also generates hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide had deleterious effects in STEC infection, as reported in a previous article. We wondered if uric acid had biological activity that might mitigate some of the deleterious effects of the peroxide, H2O2. And we found that uric acid indeed does have many interesting properties, including the ability to bind to extracellular DNA.
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Why is it important?
Uric acid has been viewed as waste product of purine metabolism without much biological importance.
Perspectives
Rheumatologists know about uric acid, because in excess quantities it can precipitate in joints, triggering an attack of gout. But many in the microbial pathogenesis field, many researchers do not consider the purines released from host cells by microbial damage as being important. We hope our article will show other scientists that uric acid can have important effects in infection.
Dr John K. Crane
University at Buffalo
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Biological Activities of Uric Acid in Infection Due to Enteropathogenic and Shiga-Toxigenic Escherichia coli, Infection and Immunity, January 2016, ASM Journals,
DOI: 10.1128/iai.01389-15.
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