A simple and convenient method for quantitation of corticosterone by high-performance liquid...

This paper describes the quantitation of corticosterone in the rat serum and adrenal gland by high-performance liquid chromatography-Ultraviolet detection. The extraction and separation were optimized, resulting in an 80% recovery of corticosterone with a detection limit of 10 ng/ml serum. The separation was achieved in less than 5 min on a micro silica gel column using isocratic elution with hexane: chloroform: methanol (7:1:1, v/v) as the mobile phase. The levels of corticosterone in rat serum in the morning and the afternoon were 105.6 +/- 11.96 ng/ml (10:00 a.m., n = 28) and 174.8 +/- 17.60 ng/ml (17:00 p.m., n = 20), respectively. Because of its simplicity, this method provides a new promising analysis for determining hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal function.