Capillary electrophoretic profiling of rat hair: a tool for alopecia areata diagnosis

Capillary electrophoretic profiling of hair fractions obtained by 0.25 M HCl treatment of the tissue with subsequent extraction of the solubilized fraction with chloroform-isopropanol (9:1, v/v) revealed clear differences between hair obtained from alopecia areata affected laboratory rats (both in hair obtained from non-affected areas and hair growing on once hairless patches) and controls. Differences were observed both in the organic-phase extractable material as well as in the aqueous phase after extraction. The separations were carried out in 25 mM borate buffer pH 9.2 for the chloroform-isopropanol extractable fraction while profiling of the aqueous phase was done in the same buffer at pH 10. Untreated fused-silica capillaries, 40-45 cm to the detector of I.D. 50 and 75 microns were used at a running voltage of 20 kV. Detection was done either by UV absorbance at a fixed wavelength of 200 nm or by using a diode array detector.