Nucleic acid modifications play important roles in biological activities and disease occurrences, and have been considered as cancer biomarkers. Due to the relatively low amount of nucleic acid modifications in biological samples, it is necessary to develop sensitive and reliable qualitative and quantitative methods to reveal the content of any modifications. In this review, the key processes affecting the qualitative and quantitative analyses are discussed, such as sample digestion, nucleoside extraction, chemical labeling, chromatographic separation, mass spectrometry detection, and data processing. The improvement of the detection sensitivity and specificity of analytical methods based on mass spectrometry makes it possible to study low-abundance modifications and their biological functions. Some typical nucleic acid modifications and their potential as biomarkers are displayed, and efforts to improve diagnostic accuracy are discussed. Future perspectives are raised for this research field.
Keywords: biomarker; chromatographic separation; mass spectrometry; nucleic acid modification.