A high-pressure liquid chromatographic method was developed which achieved a separation and quantitation of 20 biologically important nucleosides and bases. The concentrations of pyrimidine nucleosides and bases, namely deoxycytidine, cytosine, cytidine, uracil, and uridine (22.6, 10.1, 5.2, 2.9, and 2.4 nmol/ml, respectively) were high in plasma, whereas purine nucleosides and bases were present in concentrations less than 2.5 nmol/ml. In erythrocytes, the pools of xanthine, hypoxanthine, and xanthosine were 32-, 27-, and 22-fold larger, respectively, whereas cytidine, uridine, and deoxycytidine were only 21, 12, and 5% of plasma concentrations. The results suggest a compartmental system for transport of some of the purine and pyrimidine nucleosides and bases in the whole blood. Studies on the effect of ischemia on nucleoside and base pools in rat liver indicated marked increases within 30 s in the concentrations of adenine, adenosine, inosine, hypoxanthine, uridine, and xanthine, whereas in hepatoma the effects were less pronounced. By 2 and 5 min ischemia these perturbations were most marked in both liver and hepatoma. These results indicate a need for rapid freeze-clamp preparation of tissue samples to obtain precise and repeatable results in the determination of tissue nucleoside and nucleobase concentrations.
Animals Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid