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

Oligonucleotides have become widely used tools in molecular biology and molecular diagnostics. Their parallel synthesis in large numbers and the increasing interest in microarray technology has raised the requirement for fast and informative analytical tools for their quality control. A direct injection electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) technique based on the use of aqueous 2-propanol as running eluent, and spermidine (or triethylamine) as DNA modifiers, has been applied to analyze a large set of samples (about 200 synthetic oligonucleotides) ranging from 5 to 15 kDa (17-51mers) with good results in terms of sensitivity, suppression of sodium adduct formation, and speed of analysis.