Abstract
Urinary‐modified nucleosides have a potential role as cancer biomarkers for a number of malignant diseases. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was combined with full‐scan mass spectrometry, MS/MS analysis and accurate mass measurements in order to identify purine nucleosides purified from urine. Potential purine nucleosides were assessed by their evident UV absorbance in the HPLC chromatogram and then further examined by the mass spectrometric techniques. In this manner, numerous modified purine nucleosides were identified in the urine samples from cancer patients including xanthine, adenosine, __N__1‐methyladenosine, 5′‐deoxy‐5′‐methylthioadenosine, 2‐methyladenosine, __N__6‐threonylcarbamoyladenosine, inosine, __N__1‐methylinosine, guanosine, __N__1‐methylguanosine, __N__7‐methylguanine, __N__2‐methylguanosine, __N__2,__N__2‐dimethyguanosine, __N__2,__N__2,__N__7‐trimethylguanosine. Furthermore, a number of novel purine nucleosides were tentatively identified via critical interpretation of the combined mass spectrometric data including __N__3‐methyladenosine, __N__7‐methyladenine, 5′‐dehydro‐2′‐deoxyinosine, __N__3‐methylguanine, __O__6‐methylguanosine, __N__1,__N__2,__N__7‐trimethylguanosine, __N__1‐methyl‐__N__2‐ethylguanosine and __N__7‐methyl‐__N__1‐ethylguanosine. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.