Selective determination of adenine-containing compounds by capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence...

Capillary electrophoresis coupled with laser-induced fluorescence detection provides a selective analysis of mixtures of adenine-containing compounds (adenine, adenosine, cAMP, AMP, ADP, and ATP) that are derivatized using chloroacetaldehyde as a fluorogenic reagent. The components can be detected with linear response over the concentration range of 10(-4) to 10(-9) M, and the detection limit corresponds to 5 to 10 x 10(-19) mol for each nucleotide. Analysis is achieved in less than 10 min with high separation efficiencies (up to 400,000 theoretical plates) and shows good reproducibility for migration times (0.5 to 1.0%) and peak heights (2.8 to 7.7%). To demonstrate the rapid analysis of small-volume samples, the adenine-containing compounds present in an oocyte from Xenopus laevis are determined.