Separation of small DNA and RNA oligonucleotides by high-performance anion-exchange liquid chromatography

Small oligonucleotides from DNA and RNA have been separated according to their base composition by high-performance anion-exchange liquid chromatography on Partisil-10 SAX using triethylammonium acetate buffer as the eluent. Fifteen of the 16 possible deoxydinucleoside monophosphates and all 16 dinucleoside monophosphates have been separated. All pairs of sequence isomers were all resolved. The 15 commercially available deoxydinucleotides were resolved into 13 fractions. A good resolution of deoxytrinucleoside diphosphates isolated from an alkaline phosphatase-Mg2+-activated DNase I digest of calf thymus DNA was achieved by this technique. A large number of sequence isomers could be fully separated. The base sequence of the eluted individual constituents has been determined by their hydrolysis with snake venom and spleen phosphodiesterase followed by high-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of the nucleotides released. The eight trinucleoside diphosphates isolated from an alkaline phosphatase-pancreatic RNase digest of yeast RNA have also been separated according to base composition. Their sequence was determined as above. The described technique is fast and gave very good separation. Most of the sequence isomers could be separated. Moreover, the eluent triethylammonium acetate can easily be removed from column effluents by freeze-drying in order to facilitate subsequent sequence analysis of the eluted compounds. The observed elution orders of the sequence isomers obey certain rules which are discussed in detail.