Simultaneous determination of purine metabolites, creatinine and pseudouridine in ruminant urine by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.

Determination of purine metabolites, pseudouridine and creatinine in both bovine and ovine urine using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is described. Following dilution and filtration, urine samples were analysed directly. Separation and quantification was achieved using a Spherisorb ODS II C18 column (250x4.6 mm I.D.) under isocratic conditions. The mobile phase contained 7.5 mM ammonium dihydrogen phosphate, 10 mM sodium 1-heptane sulphonic acid and 1.0 mM triethylamine at pH 3.0. Chromatography was achieved at a flow-rate of 1.0 ml/min and monitoring column effluent at 218 nm. Total analysis time was 60 min. Recovery of all compound standards added to urine was above 96%. In all cases, close spectral matches of compound standards and corresponding identified peaks in ovine and bovine urine were obtained. Lowest detectable concentrations of allantoin, uric acid, xanthine, hypoxanthine, creatinine and pseudouridine were 1.1, 1.0, 1.0, 3.0 and 0.4 micromol/l, respectively. Advantages of simultaneous determination of purine metabolites, creatinine and pseudouridine in ruminant urine collected from both sheep and cattle exist over current methods.