Quantitating adenylate nucleotides in diverse organisms

Quantitation of cellular adenylate levels (i.e., ATP, ADP, AMP) has widespread applications in physiological, metabolic and energetic studies. We have compared classical adenylate extraction procedures (i.e., perchloric acid, boiling) with a previously unreported proteinase K-based extraction technique. Our results suggest that all three techniques are comparable in soft animal tissue, but proteinase K-based extractions consistently generated higher adenylate yields from a broad range of organisms, particularly those containing a cell wall (e.g., alga, bacteria, fungi, plant).