[Quantitative determination of 7-ketocholesterol in human fetal liver cell supernatant and lysate by high performance...

7-Ketocholesterol (7-KC), which is a major oxidation product of cholesterol and is selective cytotoxic to tumour cells, was isolated from human fetal liver. A fast, sensitive method of high performance liquid chromatography for the quantitation of 7-KC has been developed and applied to the determination of 7-KC in human fetal liver cell suspension. In this procedure a mixture of 2 : 1 chloroform-methanol (V/V) was used as extraction solvent. The extract was washed with distilled water and then evaporated to dryness under N2. An adsorption liquid chromatographic system used included mu-Porasil SiO2 column, hexane : iso-propanol (91 : 9) mobile phase and UV detector at 233nm. It was found that the level of 7-KC in human fetal liver cell supernatant was higher than in liver lysate.