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Kidney function

Gateway to a long life?

Nature volume 417, pages 393–395 (2002)Cite this article

A molecule has been identified that seems to regulate the levels of uric acid in humans. The discovery has implications for understanding diseases such as gout and may even shed light on human longevity.

In vertebrates, uric acid is formed through the breakdown of unwanted purine molecules — the constituents of cellular energy stores such as ATP, and components of DNA and RNA. The breakdown process mainly occurs in the liver, muscles and intestine, and uric acid is then released into the bloodstream. Uric acid can be tremendously beneficial because it scavenges potentially harmful reactive oxygen species, inevitable by-products of glucose metabolism. Perhaps because of this, it also contributes to longevity in certain vertebrates. On the other hand, too much uric acid can also cause significant health problems, leading to kidney stones when it builds up in the kidneys and to gout when crystals accumulate in the joints. So the levels of uric acid in the blood must be tightly controlled. On page 447 of this issue, Enomoto and colleagues1 describe how they identified a long-hypothesized transporter molecule, found in the kidneys, that helps to maintain blood uric-acid levels in humans and might thereby maximize the benefits of uric acid.

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Figure 1: Pathways for uric-acid transport.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Membrane Biology Program at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Matthias A. Hediger

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  1. Matthias A. Hediger
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Correspondence to Matthias A. Hediger.

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Hediger, M. Gateway to a long life?. Nature 417, 393–395 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/417393a

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/417393a

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