Separations of the diastereoisomers of three nucleoside 5'-phosphotriester derivatives of Ara-C (tBuSATE, hydroxy tBuSATE and bishydroxy tBuSATE phenylphosphotriester derivatives; pronucleotides) were performed by HPLC using derivatized cellulose and amylose chiral stationary phases. An optimal baseline separation (Rs>1.5) was readily obtained with an amylose based chiral column (AD-H) used in normal phase mode. This stereospecific HPLC method has been associated to a solid phase extraction step using a C18 cartridge and an internal standard for the quantification of one nucleoside 5'-phosphotriester derivative in cell extracts. After optimization, this method was validated in terms of specificity, recovery, linearity, precision and accuracy and detection limit. It was applied to the determination of the apparent rate constants of disappearance and half-lives of each diastereoisomer. This enabled us to conclude that the enzymatic activity involved in the first step of the decomposition pathway of the hydroxyl tBuSATE phenylphosphotriester of Ara-C is stereoselective and is related to the nature of the pyrimidic base.