Quantitation of deoxyribonucleoside 5'-triphosphates by a sequential boronate and anion-exchange high-pressure liquid chromatographic procedure.

A rapid method for the quantitative determination of cellular deoxyribonucleoside 5'-triphosphates is described. Cell extracts are first separated by boronate chromatography at pH 8.9, which removes 99% of the ribonucleoside triphosphate (rNTPs) from the deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates (dNTPs). The resulting dNTP fraction is analyzed by gradient high-pressure liquid chromatography utilizing a strong anion-exchange column, which can separate minor rNTP peaks from the corresponding dNTPs. This sequential procedure, which requires less than 1 h per sample for both chromatographic steps, results in the quantitative recovery of greater than 98% of the dNTPs from cell extracts. Nucleotide analogs, such as 1-beta-D-arabinofuranosylcytosine-5'-triphosphate and 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine-5'-triphosphate, can also be quantitated efficiently by this method.