Does purine synthesis differ from pyrimidine synthesis?

Answer 1

No. Both purines and pyrimidines use the same two pathways: a salvage pathway which uses intermediates from the nucleotide degradation pathways and a novo synthesis pathway which builds up the molecules from scratch. However, as purines are a double-cyclic structure and pyrimidine is a single cyclic structure, different enzymes and molecules will be used for each pathway.