Objective A high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) method was developed for the determination of four kinds of purine in food.Methods Food sample was hydrolyzed with perchloric acid at 100 ℃ for 60 min,and the hydrolyzate was filtrated with membrane.The chromatographic separation was achieved in Waters Atlantis T3(4.6 mm×250 mm×5 μm) column by using 10 mmol/L formic acid amine solution(pH3.6) and CH3OH(99∶1) as mobile phase with a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min at 30 ℃.The detection was performed under Waters 2487 UV detector at 254 nm with a injection volume of 10 μl.Results The HPLC response to these four kinds of purine was linear in the range of 0.05-20.00 μg/ml,r>0.999 9.The average recovery of standard addition was 93.1%-101.3%,and relative standard deviation(RSD) was less than 12.5%.Conclusion The HPLC method for the determination of four kinds of major purine in food was fairly high in accurate and good sensitivity.