Adenosine deaminase and xanthine oxidase activity levels in children with anxiety disorder

Aims: Anxiety disorders are quite common in children and adolescents. Affecting approximately 6.5% of children and adolescents, this disorder stems from a complex interplay of genetic predisposition and environmental risk factors. Since adenosine has a role in suppressing anxiety, increased adenosine degradation, followed by increased degradation of hypoxanthine and xanthine, and subsequently increased reactive oxygen species, which are associated with anxiety, may contribute to the biology of anxiety in children. Therefore, in our study, we aimed to investigate the activity levels of the adenosine degrading enzyme adenosine deaminase (ADA) and the hypoxanthine and xanthine degrading enzyme xanthine oxidase (XO) to determine whether changes in the activity of these two enzymes play a role in anxiety in children.Methods: The study design was a cross-sectional case-control study. ADA and XO enzyme activity levels were spectrophotometrically analyzed in serum samples obtained from children with anxiety and children in the control group.Results: ADA activity was measured as 22.12±2.51 U/L in children with anxiety, while this value was determined as 14.90±1.98 U/L in the control group (p