A note on the physiological background of the ethylene oxide adduct 7-(2-hydroxyethyl)guanine in DNA from human blood.

A newly developed high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method involves derivatization with phenylglyoxal and fluorescence detection, using 7-methylguanine as internal standard. The physiological background of the adduct 7-(2-hydroxyethyl)guanine in DNA isolated from human blood was determined by this method. In five persons the range of the adduct was between 2.1 and 5.8 pmol/mg DNA (mean 3.2). This finding is consistent with previous data obtained by others, using different analytical methods, and points to an intrinsic carcinogenic risk due to endogenous ethylene oxide.