Determination of ATP related compounds in fresh and canned tuna fish by HPLC

Reliability of two HPLC methods to determine ATP, ADP, AMP, IMP, inosine and hypoxanthine in fish was studied after modifying mobile phase composition to improve resolution. Both methods included the same extraction procedure, and used a C18 column and UV detection. Mobile phases were neutral phosphate buffer in both methods but one of them used tetrabutylammonium hydrogen sulphate as ionic supressor. Both procedures gave acceptable results, although the addition of the ionic suppressor led to various advantages, such as improved recovery, precision, and sensitivity. Furthermore, chromatographic procedure without ionic suppressor showed a lack of specificity in canned tuna samples, since an unknown peak appeared at ATP retention time. In addition, IMP, Ino and Hx stability in fish samples and in fish samples extracts stored at -18 °C were studied and no changes on their contents were observed throughout 26 weeks.