Phosphodiesterases are drug targets for treating various diseases. Inhibition of these can increase cAMP and cGMP levels, which can affect a variety of physiological responses. Here we report a new method for determining PDE activity by combining high-performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. Characteristic peaks of the substrates, cGMP or cAMP and products, GMP or AMP, were identified in positive-ion electrospray ionization using multiple reaction monitoring. The method can be applied to determine activity of PDE inhibitors. Our results showed that this new method was fast, sensitive and highly reproducible. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.85913741