Acetonitrile-hydrochloric acid hydrolysis of gangliosides for high performance liquid chromatographic analysis of their long chain bases.

An improved method for the hydrolysis of long chain bases from gangliosides with aqueous acetonitrile-HCl is described. The long chain bases released from brain gangliosides were derivatized with biphenylcarbonylchloride and resolved by high performance liquid chromatography on a C18 reversed-phase column. Components of individual peaks were identified by gas-liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry as their trimethylsilyl derivatives. The acetonitrile-HCL hydrolysis procedure resulted in no formation of O-methyl ethers of long chain bases and a significant decrease in the level of secondary products.