Measurement of tissue purine, pyrimidine, and other nucleotides by radial compression high-performance liquid chromatography.

A high-performance liquid-chromatographic (HPLC) method for the rapid separation of purine and pyrimidine nucleotides, NAD+, NADP+, FAD, FMN, UDP-Glc, UDP-glucuronate, and ADP-ribose found in neutralized perchloric acid extracts of rat liver is described. Separation was achieved within 26 min on a radially compressed column of Partisil 10-SAX. The column was eluted with a gradient of sodium phosphate and sodium chloride. The sodium phosphate was purified by passage through tandem columns of anion- and cation-exchange resins to remove uv-absorbing impurities. The sensitivity of this procedure is such that an amount of ATP contained in 10 micrograms of liver can be measured. The recoveries of all nucleotides were between 87 and 107%. In extracts of rat liver interfering substances were found to elute with GDP, and UDP eluted with NADP. Consequently, the tissue contents of UDP and GDP were determined in a second run by measuring the increase in UTP and GTP, respectively, following sample pretreatment with pyruvate kinase (PK). The tissue level of NADP+ was calculated as the difference between the total UDP and NADP+ peak and the increase in UTP following PK treatment. In those nucleotides amenable to enzymatic analysis, namely NAD+, AMP, UDP-Glc, UTP, and ATP, the tissue contents measured enzymatically were not significantly different from those determined by HPLC. However, ADP as measured with PK was found to be 15% higher compared to the HPLC determination.