Interlaboratory comparison of total cytochrome P-450 and protein determinations in rat liver microsomes. Reinvestigation of assay conditions.

Assay conditions in determining total cytochrome P-450 in four laboratories were compared. Although the determination was derived from the original Omura and Sato method in each laboratory, the four standard protocols differed slightly, resulting in considerable differences in the results. Since the cytochrome P-450 content is usually expressed per mg protein, the protein assay conditions were evaluated as well. Furthermore, we compared the cytochrome P-450 values obtained by the CO- and the dithionite (DT)-difference methods. The effect of a number of variables in the assay was investigated. The influence of the storage temperature of the microsomes was ascertained as well as effects of the gassing time with CO and the time between addition of dithionite, CO-gassing and the recording of the difference spectra. After evaluating these variables a standard operation procedure was established. Using this procedure the interlaboratory coefficient of variation for total cytochrome P-450 was 4.8%, a value which was comparable to the intralaboratory coefficients of variation. The final results also show that the millimolar extinction coefficient for the DT-difference method is higher than for the CO-difference method.