I n the majority of patients with gout and excessive uric acid production, underlying enzyme abnormalities have not been identified. In the present study, measurement of both the rate of generation and concentration of phosphoribosylpyrophosphate (PP-ribose-P) and the concentration of ribose-5-phosphate in cultured cells were undertaken to establish a classification of purine overproducers to direct study of additional enzyme defects. Fibroblasts were cultured from 24 individuals assigned to 4 groups: group 1, 5 normal controls; group 2, 5 patients with gout and normal dialy urinary uric acid excretion (gouty controls); group 3, 7 patients with well-defined enzyme abnormalities and excessive urinary acid excretion (4 with hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase deficiency and 3 with excessive PP-ribose-P synthetase activity); and group 4, 7 patients with gout and excessive uric acid excretion but without grossly abnormal activities of the above enzymes in erythrocyte lysates. In all 14 fibroblast strains from patients showing excessive production of uric acid (groups 3 and 4), rates of purine synthesis de novo and PP-ribose-P concentrations exceeded values for cells from control groups. Cells from group 3 patients with hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase deficiency showed normal PP-ribose-P generation, while those with excessive PP-ribose-P synthetase activity demonstrated increased generation of this regulatory substrate. All strains from group 3 patients had normal ribose-5-phosphate concentrations. Five cell strains from group 4 patients showed one of the two patterns of abnormalities in these measurements seen in strains from group 3 patients: two resembled hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase-deficient cells, and three resembled cells with excessive PP-ribose-P synthetase activity. Analyses of erythrocyte enzyme preparations from two of these patients in group 4 have led to identification of a kinetic variant of each enzyme as predicted from the foregoing patterns. Two additional group 4 cell lines that showed increased ribose-5-phosphate concentrations in addition to increased PP-ribose-P concentrations and generation were classified in a separate subgroup, since in the individuals excessive purine synthesis appeared to result from increases ribose-5-phosphate concentration, leading to increased availability of PP-ribose-P. No abnormality in either hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase or PP-ribose-P synthetase has been found in erythrocyte preparations from one patient so classified.