DETERMINATION OF ALPHA-TOCOPHEROL, GAMMA(-TOCOPHEROL, AND DELTA-TOCOPHEROL IN A VARIETY OF LIVER-TISSUES BY REVERSE-PHASE HIGH-PRESSURE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY(BETA))

A modified version of a previously published extraction technique usin g acetone as the extracting medium and separation on an HPLC equipped with a Spherisorb C-18 ODS2 column packed with 3 mu m particles along with a suitable flow rate and mobile phase significantly improves the resolution of the chromatographic output (fluorescence detector), allo wing for accurate measurement of alpha-, delta- and gamma(+beta)-tocop herols. It was found that two extractions of the same sample yielded a pproximately 97% of the total extractable alpha-tocopherol. Vitamin C was not needed as an anti-oxidant to protect alpha-tocopherol during e xtraction from chicken liver but was needed when using fish liver. alp ha-tocopherol was found not to be evenly distributed in beef, chicken or fish liver.