High-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of free gossypol in chicken liver.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of free gossypol in chicken liver at levels down to 0.5 ppm has been developed. Tissue was deproteinized with acetonitrile in presence of ascorbic acid and the filtrate was subjected to hydrolysis with hydrochloric acid. The liberated pure gossypol was partitioned into chloroform and analysed by gradient elution on a 10-microns C18 column. The overall recovery was 83.5 +/- 2.6%, with an overall relative standard deviation of 9%.