Analysis of high molecular weight material from the polymerization of adenosine cyclic 2′, 3′-phosphate

Abstract

Adenosine cyclic 2′, 3′-phosphate has been polymerized at room temperature in the dry state using 1, 2-diaminoethane at alkaline pH as catalyst. The high molecular weight products have been analyzed by several different methods, including ion exchange and gel permeation chromatography and phosphate end-group analysis. Gel permeation chromatography showed that between 3.6% and 8.1% of material higher than the hexamer was formed in 3-, 15- and 40-day reactions. The material from a large-scale, 3-day reaction mixture was first fractionated by ion exchange chromatography and the highest molecular weight material then further fractionated by gel permeation chromatography. End-group analysis on the fractions obtained by this procedure showed that 0.67% of the total reaction mixture was polymer with an average chainlength of 13.4; a trace (0.15%) of higher polymer was also formed, but there was insufficient to determine its average chainlength. The prebiological relevance of these findings is discussed.