S-Adenosyl methionine/S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine ratio determination by capillary electrophoresis employed as a monitoring tool for the antiviral effectiveness of adenosine analogs

S‐Adenosyl‐L‐homocysteine hydrolase (SAHh) inhibitors have long been used as broad‐range antivirals and have been recently evaluated as an experimental therapy of filovirus infections. In response to the need for a rapid laboratory testing method that could assess antiviral potency in vivo, our group developed a capillary electrophoresis (CE) method for the determination of the S‐adenosyl‐L‐homocysteine (SAH) to S‐adenosyl‐L‐methionine (SAM) ratio. After chloroacetaldehyde derivatization, SAH and SAM were detected using laser‐induced fluorescence detection with a HeCd laser. Separation and quantitation of both SAH and SAM in human plasma were achieved in less than 1 min. The proposed method is rapid and reliable, and could be easily applied to routine monitoring of clinical and preclinical trials subjects.