Carrier detection for adrenoleukodystrophy by high-performance liquid chromatography.

With a newly devised method of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), we scrutinized lipid extraction of very-long-chain fatty acids of cultured skin fibroblasts from obligate (n = 4) and possible (n = 3) carriers for adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) in order to establish the best method to detect a carrier for the ALD gene. All four methods (total esterified fatty acids, total fatty acids with acetonitrile-HCl, total fatty acids with methanolic-HCl, and triacylglycerol fraction) were applicable to carrier detection, but from the standpoint of simplicity and sensitivity, the method using total fatty acids with acetonitrile-HCl seemed to be the best. This is the first study of ALD carrier detection in which cultured skin fibroblasts are investigated using HPLC as an analytical method.