Evaluation of commercial heparin preparations for use in the heparin-Mn2+ method for measuring cholesterol in high-sensity lipoprotein.

Commercial heparin preparations (18 lots) from seven manufacturers were compared in the heparin-Mn2+ procedure for high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol quantitation. With normotriglyceridemic samples, 16 heparin lots, isolated from porcine intestinal mucosa, gave mean values for supernatant cholesterol that did not differ statistically; all were within 7 mg/L. Two heparin preparations from bovine lung gave results that were slightly (16 mg/L, average) but significantly (p less than 0.005) lower. With hypertriglyceridemic samples, we observed greater variation in supernatant cholesterol among the heparin preparations, which was ascribable to variable sedimentation by centrifugation of very-low-density and low-density lipoproteins precipitated by heparin-Mn2+ treatment. If the precipitated lipoproteins were completely removed by an ultrafiltration procedure, we saw no significant difference among the heparin preparations for results with hypertriglyceridemic samples.