Interrelationships between purine nucleotide degradation and radical formation during intestinal ischaemia and reperfusion: an application of ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatography of nucleotides, nucleosides and nucleobases.

There are peroxidative changes during the reperfusion of the rat small intestine following a 1h period of total ischaemia. That is demonstrated by the increases of the concentrations of glutathione disulphide and of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances. An important source of the active oxygen species leading to peroxidations is the degradation of purine nucleotides. The nucleotides and their derivatives were measured by an ion-pair reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic separation in a single analysis within 40 min. Modification of the elution gradient resulted in a high resolution of nucleosides and nucleobases, including allopurinol and oxypurinol. The decrease of the nucleoside triphosphate concentration and the increase of nucleoside monophosphate concentration, followed by accumulations of nucleosides and nucleobases in the course of the ischaemia were measured. During reperfusion the nucleotide pools are filled up. Restoration of adenosine triphosphate and guanosine triphosphate can be accelerated by application of the xanthine oxidoreductase inhibitor allopurinol. Pretreatment of the animals with allopurinol also diminished the formation of glutathione disulphide and thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances.