A general purification procedure for chemically synthesized oligoribonucleotides.

A general procedure for the purification of chemically synthesized oligoribonucleotides is reported. Purification based on the use of a single reverse-phase HPLC column with buffer systems of differing ion-pairing capacity is described. These methods have been applied to the preparation of a series of RNAs which range in size from 10 to 46 nucleotides. The yields obtained are high, up to 53% (based on isolated product compared to those obtained from final trityl assay). The purity of the isolated material is 96-99%. Thus with this general procedure, milligram quantities of extremely pure RNA can be efficiently obtained.