[Urate transporter and renal hypouricemia].

Urate, a purine metabolite, is a cause of gout(hyperuricemia), which is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Urate is a scavenger of reactive oxygen radicals that are involved in numerous diseases. Because humans have a renal urate reabsorption system and have lost hepatic uricase by mutational silencing in evolution, urate is present in human blood at high levels. We identified the long-hypothesized urate transporter in the human kidney (URAT1, encoded by SLC22A12), a urate anion exchanger regulating blood urate levels and targeted it with uricosuric and antiuricosuric agents. Moreover, we demonstrated that patients with renal hypouricemia have mutational defects in SLC22A12.