Hypoxanthine

Hypoxanthine is a nutrient additive for a variety of cell culture applications involving bacterial, parasite (Plasmodium falciparum) and animal cells. Hypoxanthine is a component of selection media used in hybridoma technologies.

Hypoxanthine has been used:

• to gavage mice and to evaluate the activity of xanthine oxidase (XO) in pasteurized whole milk in vivo in potassium oxonate (PO) -induced mouse model of hyperuricemia
• as a supplement in Iscove′s modified Dulbecco′s medium (IMDM) medium to cultivate in-vitro cell line (EL-1 cells)
• as a pure standard for the quantification of hypoxanthine in vitreous fluid sample using high-performance liquid chromatography-ultra-violet (HPLC-UV) for the estimation of post-mortem interval

Hypoxanthine acts as an intermediate in purine metabolism. It elicits a vital role as a 5′-base of the anticodon in a few transfer-RNAs. Though similar to guanine (Gua), it is devoid of the exocyclic amino group at C(2) position. It may be used as a substrate to study the specificity and kinetics of hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferases.