A new chromatographic method using immobilized acriflavin for measuring cyclic AMP in cells prelabeled with radioactive adenine.

A method using the principle of charge-transfer chromatography has been developed for the determination of cyclic AMP levels in intact prelabeled cells. The ATP pool was prelabeled by incubating the cells in the presence of radioactive adenine. The cyclic AMP formed from ATP was extracted with HC10(4) and separated from adenine and other adenosine-related nucleotides by chromatography on acriflavin-Sephadex G-25. This method provides a rapid and sensitive isolation of cyclic AMP with high recovery (95-100%) and low blnks. Further, no contamination of the cyclic AMP fractions was found by either adenine or adenosine nucleotides such as ATP, ADP or AMP. This procedure is applicable to a variety of cell or tissue systems.