Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry of synthetic oligonucleotides using 2-propanol and spermidine

Oligonucleotides have become widely used tools in molecular biology and mol ecular diagnostics, Their parallel synthesis in large numbers and the incre asing interest in microarray technology has raised the requirement for fast and informative analytical tools for their quality control. A direct injec tion electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) technique based on the use of aqueous 2-propanol as running eluent, and spermidine (or triethy lamine) as DNA modifiers, has been applied to analyze a large set of sample s (about 200 synthetic oligonucleotides) ranging from 5 to 15 kDa (17-51mer s) with good results in terms of sensitivity, suppression of sodium adduct formation, and speed of analysis. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley gr Sons, Lt d.