The first committed step of purine biosynthesis starts from 5-phosphoribosyl 1 pyrophosphate. This undergoes a series of reactions to form IMP, an important branch point in the pathway. The pathway then branches to form adenylosuccinate and then adenylate (AMP) in one branch and xanthylate (XMP) and then guanylate (GMP) in the other branch. IMP dehydrogenase catalyses the conversion of IMP to XMP and GMP synthetase catalyses the conversion of XMP to GMP.