Interrelationships between purine metabolism and immunity, cancer, and the diet have been considered. In studying trends of metabolic changes which occur in response to changes in the purine content of the diet, it has been hypothesized that when purines are lacking from the diet, there is a general shift from a catabolic to an anabolic state. In the present investigation, the activities of selected enzymes on purine metabolism in rats were studied with respect to an oral or intravenous nucleotide-free diet compared to the activities in rats fed normal chow. The intravenous nucleotide-free diet caused a decrease in purine nucleoside phosphorylase activity, an increase in adenine phosphoribosyl transferase, and no change in the activity of hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase, with respect to a normal control diet. The orally fed nucleotide-free diet caused a decrease in the activity of purine nucleoside phosphorylase and xanthine oxidase and increase in pancreatic ribonucléase and no change in adenine phosphoribosyl transferase or hyphoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase, with respect to a normal control diet. These observations support the predicted shift from catabolism to anabolism. They also augment the growing awareness of the interrelationships between diet and cancer as well as diet and the immune response.