DETERMINATION OF TRANS-BETA-CAROTENE AND OTHER CAROTENOIDS IN BLOOD-PLASMA USING HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY AND THERMAL LENS DETECTION

Thermal lens spectrometry (TLS) was applied for the detection of beta- cryptoxanthin, alpha-carotene, trans-beta-carotene, and lycopen in blo od plasma. This combined high-performance liquid chromatography-TLS (H PLC-TLS) method was validated by comparison with HPLC-UV-Vis analysis of blood plasma under identical chromatographic conditions and by comp aring the results obtained from an independent, standard HPLC procedur e for determination of carotenoids in blood plasma samples. The result s demonstrated good agreement with the target values for carotenoids i n an in-laboratory control sample and confirmed the accuracy of the HP LC-TLS technique. Limits of detection for blood plasma samples were 70 pg/ml for beta-cryptoxanthin, 85 pg/ml for alpha-carotene, 100 pg/ml for trans-beta-carotene, and 120 pg/ml for lycopen. This represents a 100-fold improvement compared to the HPLC analysis with W-Vis detectio n. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science BN; All rights reserved.