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Historical Bibliography Updated: June 16, 2026

Enzyme defect associated with a sex-linked human neurological disorder and excessive purine synthesis.

Publication Details

Science, 155, 1682-84. 1967 CE.

Jay Seegmiller and his colleagues at NIH discovered that the rare genetic disease, Lesch–Nyhan syndrome, was due to a profound deficiency of an enzyme known as hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyltransferase, or HGPRT. They reported this as "the first example of a relation between a specific enzyme defect and abnormal compulsive behavior and simultaneously as the 1st enzyme defect in purine metabolism demonstrated in a neurological disease."

Order of authorship in the original publication: Seegmiller, Rosenbloom, Kelly.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

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Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#14198
Permanent Linkhttps://staging.historyofmedicine.com/entry/16514
Author Bio LinkWikipedia ↗
External URLenzyme-defect-associated-with-a-sexlinked-human-neurological-disorder-and-excessive-purine-synthesis