Alkaline hydrolysis of oligoribonucleotides on chromatographic paper

A method is described which permits the alkaline hydrolysis of oligoribonucleotides while on chromatography paper. In one example of this technique, the dinucleotides from a pancreatic RNase digest are characterized. In the second example, some new information about the diversity of sequences found at the 5′-triphosphate termini of bacterial RNA is obtained. There are at least three different pancreatic RNase fragments beginning with adenosine, two with guanosine, and at least three RNase T1 fragments beginning with adenosine.