Quantification of gangliosides by microbore high performance liquid chromatography

A highly sensitive analytical method was developed that allows the separation of ganglioside mixtures and quantification of individual non-derivatized gangliosides in the concentration range between 2 pmol and 1 nmol. Gangliosides were separated with a gradient of acetonitrile/phosphate buffer on a 1 mm diameter microbore HPLC column packed with Spherisorb-NH2. They eluted according to their number of sialic acid residues with increasing phosphate and decreasing acetonitrile concentrations. The separation of different gangliosides with equal sialic acid content is also described. The column effluent was monitored at the maximum of absorption at 197 nm. The sensitivity is higher than resorcinol staining of fractionated gangliosides by thin layer chromatography, previously the standard method for ganglioside analysis. The separated gangliosides can be analyzed by further methods. The HPLC method described here has been applied to the analysis of serum and oligodendroglioma specimens.