High performance liquid chromatographic separation of diacylglycerol acetates to quantitate disaturated species of lung phosphatidylcholine.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) separation of diacylglycerol acetates to quantitate disaturated species of lung phosphatidylcholine (PC) was studied. The diacylglycerol acetates were applied on a reversed phase column, eluted by an isocratic solvent, acetonitrile/isopropanol/water (35:15:1, v/v/v) at a flow rate of 1 ml/min, and detected by differential refractometry (RI). This isocratic HPLC method was useful to separate disaturated species from the others of lung PC. The quantitative analysis of the molecular species separated by HPLC was studied by RI detection. Chromatograms obtained by RI detection and radioactivity determination of diacylglycerol [3H]acetates prepared by [3H]acetic anhydride were almost identical. The RI detector responded in the same degree for different authentic standards of diacylglycerol acetates. The detection limit with RI detection was about 30 nmoles. Molecular species of PCs from human lung and carcinoma tissues were analyzed by this HPLC method. The contents of disaturated species were very similar to those reported previously. These results indicate that RI detection is very useful in the nmole range for the quantitative analysis among the molecular species containing disaturated species.