Background: Metabolic profiling allows the measurement of a large set of both known and unknown metabolites (such as nucleosides and nucleobases) present in a biological sample (e.g., urine).
Results: Separation of the isolated urinary nucleosides was performed on two connected Gemini C18 columns - 3 µm pore size (50 cm total length) - at 55°C using mobile-phase gradient elution. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to distinguish differences in the concentration of compounds in urine from urogenital cancer patients and healthy controls. Comparison of mean concentration values from the healthy and cancer groups revealed statistically significant differences (p < 0.01) for most of the metabolites studied (excluding m7G, m3C and A). Observed elevated levels of nucleosides mean concentrated values in urine in the case of cancer patients are between 1.5 and 2.0.
Conclusion: These results verify the usefulness of the RP-HPLC method to investigate the urinary pattern of normal and modified nucleosides.