A comparison of the efficiency of nucleotide extraction by several procedures and the analysis of nucleotides from extracts of liver and isolated hepatocytes by HPLC

A high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) system was devel-oped, capable of resolving most 5’-nucleotides and nucleotide-sugars present in liver tissue. Using three different extraction procedures, the recovery of the twelve major 5’-ribonucleotides from solutions of nucleotide standards, or liver samples, or isolated hepatocytes was compared. Nucleotides were obtained from acid extracts for HPLC analysis by adsorbing the nucleotides on charcoal, or precipitating the acid (perchloric acid) by KOH, or extracting the acid with alamine/ freon. The last two procedures were found to be superior to the charcoal adsorption procedure for recovering nucleotides from acid extracts. The recovery of nucleotides from either liver samples or isolated hepatocytes by these two procedures was similar; however, the recovery of nucleotides from standard solutions was slightly higher for the alamine/freon procedure than the KOH precipitation procedure.