Determination of purines in prepackaged food using optimum acid hydrolysis followed by high performance liquid chromatography.

A high performance liquid chromatography was established to determine purine content of prepackaged food. Chromatographic separation was performed on Agilent5 TC-C18 column. Ammonium formate (10 mmol/L, pH = 3.385) and methanol (99:1) were used as mobile phase. Purine concentration and peak area showed good linear relationships in the range from 1 to 40 mg/L (guanine, hypoxanthine, adenine) and xanthine exhibited a good linear relationship ranged from 0.1 to 4.0 mg/L. Recoveries of four purines ranged from 93.03% to 107.42%. Purine content in prepackaged food was following: animal derived prepackaged food: 16.13-90.18 mg/100 g; beans and bean products: 66.36-157.11 mg/100 g; fruits and fruit products: 5.64-21.79 mg/100 g; instant rice and flour products: 5.68-30.83 mg/100 g; fungi, algae, fungi and algae products: 32.57-70.59 mg/100 g. This proposed method had good precision and accuracy with a wide linear range for detection of purine. Animal derived prepackaged food was purine-rich food, purine content of plant derived prepackaged food varied greatly.