Is Hypoxanthine a Useful Marker of Perinatal Hypoxia

Perinatal hypoxia is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality of newborns and was therefore intensively studied (O’Connor et al., 1981; Saugstadt and Gluck, 1982; Ripalda et al., 1989; Gloeckner and Kretschmar, 1991). Each kind of oxygen deficiency is combined with an accelerated purine degradation and therefore an accelerated formation of purine degradation products. On the other hand the final purine degradation could lead to an increased formation of reduced oxygen species via the xanthine oxidase reaction. Some of these reduced oxygen species are able to damage cellular structures and components, e.g. proteins, nucleic acids and lipids. The cascade of oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids via reactive oxygen species includes the formation of a number of aldehydes as secondary lipid peroxidation products. The quantitative most important among these is malondialdehyde (MDA).