Analytical Strategies for Nucleosides and Nucleotides in Food: Advances in Sample Preparation and Separation Technologies with Emerging Challenges

Nucleosides and nucleotides are intracellular compounds that are precursors of nucleic acids and which take part in various regulatory and metabolic functions. Sensitive and efficient methods for the analysis and determination of nucleotides and nucleosides in different samples have received increasing attention and are also a hot research topic in food analysis. The determination of nucleotide content is challenging due to the presence of a large number of endogenous interferences in complex matrices and exogenous interferences that may be introduced during manipulation, as well as the high polarity of the phosphate group molecules in nucleotides. This paper presents a review of pretreatment and analytical methods for nucleotides in different food samples. Different solid-phase extraction methods, solid-phase extraction based on novel materials, QuEChERS and other advanced pretreatment methods are discussed, and the characteristics and development of liquid chromatography, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry and capillary electrophoresis are reviewed. In addition, the future prospects in the analysis of these compounds in food matrices have also been included.