Bioanalysis of picomole amounts of acetylcholine by ion-pair partition chromatography applied to rat sciatic nerve

A method for determination of acetylcholine in small, discrete biological objects by use of ion-pair technique has been developed. Acetylcholine is extracted as an ion pair with 3,5-di-t-butyl-2-hydroxybenzenesulphonate and separated from co-extracted components by ion-pair partition chromatography with picrate as the counter ion and porous cellulose as support. The quantitative evaluation is made from the acetylcholine peak in the chromatogram obtained by ultraviolet detection. Acetylcholine has been analysed in 1 cm large pieces of rat sciatic nerve containing about 60 pmol (10 ng). The overall recovery of the method is 100 +/- 10% at the 120 pmol level of acetylcholine in a sample.