Assessment of fatty acids in cardiac tissue as 9-anthryldiazomethane esters by high-performance liquid chromatography

A high-performance liquid chromatographic technique for the rapid assessment fatty acids in cardiac tissue is described. A level of 50.4 +/- 14.9 nmol fatty acids per g wet weight of rat myocardial tissue could be monitored. The content of the individual fatty acids C14:0, C16:0, C16:1, C18:0, C18:1, C18:2 and C20:4 amounted to 1.9, 13.5, 0.6, 14.4, 6.1, 6.5 and 7.2 nmol/g wet weight, respectively. A comparison of this method with a well established gas chromatographic technique yielded good agreement. In contrast with time-consuming gas chromatographic techniques, there is no need to isolate (unesterified) fatty acids from the other lipid classes with column chromatography or thin-layer chromatography, because the derivatizing reagent 9-anthryldiazomethane reacts highly specifically with fatty acids.