Isolation of hypoxanthine from calf brain

E xcept for the crystalline deposits of hypoxanthine found in skeletal muscle of patients with congenital xanthine oxidase deficiency (xanthinuria) there are few reports concerning oxypurines in the mammalian tissues (P arker , S nedden and W atts , 1969, 1970). Since it is difficult to separate hypoxanthine from xanthine in biological fluids (S immonds and W ilson , 1967), the distribution of hypoxanthine in mammalian tissues is not known in detail.
This paper shows that cubic or rod crystals of C₅H₄ON₄are easily isolated from calf brain by column chromatography with ion exchange resin Amberlite CG120 and their identity with hypoxanthine was shown by means of nuclear magnetic resonance and mass Spectrometry.