The determination of the specific activity of plasma glycerol

A method for the determination of the specific activity of plasma glycerol is described. Anionic contaminants are first removed from deproteinzed plasma by anionic exchange resins (treated plasma). Glycerol in treated plasma is then quantitatively converted to glycerol-3-phosphate (G3P), which is isolated by column chromatography and counted for 14C radio-activity. The specific activity thus calculated was 100.1 +/- 2.9% of a standard of known specific activity. When the specific activity of glycerol is determined from plasma without prior removal of anionic contaminants (untreated plasma), the calculated specific activity is 1.99 +/- 0.15 times higher than the one calculated after their removal. Omission of the removal of contaminants leads to a near 100% error in the calculation of the turnover rate of glycerol.