Comparison of the isolation of adducts of 2'-deoxycytidine and 2'-deoxyguanosine with phenylglycidyl ether by high-performance liquid chromatography on a reversed-phase column and a polystyrene-divinylbenzene column.

2'-Deoxycitidine (dCyd) and 2'-deoxyguanosine (dGuo) were subjected to reaction with phenylglycidyl ether (PGE) in methanol in order to study the formation of the corresponding 2'-deoxynucleoside adducts. Separation methods were developed on analytical and semi-preparative scales using high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode-array detection on a reversed-phase column and on a polystyrene-divinylbenzene column. The use of the latter column was prompted by decomposition of the preparatively isolated dGuo-PGE adducts on the reversed-phase column. The use of a polystyrene-divinylbenzene column solved this problem and also revealed the presence of one more peak in both the dCyd- and dGuo-PGE reaction mixtures. The adducts of dCyd and dGuo were isolated on preparative reversed-phase and polystyrene-divinylbenzene columns and characterized by UV, fast atom bombardment mass and 360 MHz 1H NMR spectrometry. The adducts of dCyd were the diastereomers of N-3-(2-hydroxy-3-phenoxypropyl)-2'-deoxycytidine and N4-(2-hydroxy-3-phenoxypropyl)-2'-deoxycytidine whereas those of dGuo were the two diastereomers of N-7-(2-hydroxy-3-phenoxypropyl)-2'-deoxyguanosine and a third peak which appeared to be mainly N2-(2-hydroxy-3-phenoxypropyl)-2'-deoxyguanosine.