Simultaneous quantification of purine and pyrimidine bases, nucleosides and their degradation products in bovine blood plasma by high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.

•Simultaneous quantification of 20 purines and pyrimidines.•LC–MS/MS method developed and validated for bovine blood plasma.•Novel metabolite concentrating pre-treatment.•Matrix-matched calibration standards and stable isotopically labelled references.•The method is simple, sensitive and specific.