title: Intracellular nucleotides of lymphocytes and granulocytes from normal ageing subjects.
abstract: Impaired lymphocyte and granulocyte function in the aged may, in part, reflect intrinsic aged-related biochemical alterations. In this study we compared the ribonucleotide contents of lymphocytes and granulocytes from young and old subjects evaluated by means of an HPLC-anion exchange method. We found that in general both populations from old subjects present higher levels of the various nucleotides, in particular: ATP, UDP, CTP, UDP-glucose in granulocytes, AMP, CTP, UDP-N-acetylglucosamine, UDP-glucose in lymphocytes. These data suggest that these molecules accumulate in aged subjects because of altered biochemical pathways. The increased pool of UDP-sugars, in particular, could be due to a depressed activity of some glycosyltransferases which therefore fail to glycosylate some plasma membrane cell proteins, thus accounting for their functional impairment.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio di Immunologia e Genetica, Istituto di Ricerca Codivilla-Putti IOR, Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Borzì
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dal Monte
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Uguccioni
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Meliconi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Facchini
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*; D001798:Blood Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006031:Glycosylation; D006098:Granulocytes / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D012265:Ribonucleotides / Q000378:metabolism*; D014539:Uridine Diphosphate Sugars / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D001798:Blood Proteins; D012265:Ribonucleotides; D014539:Uridine Diphosphate Sugars