Studies on steroids. CXXVIII. Separation and determination of bile acids by high-performance liquid chromatography.

A method is described for the simultaneous determination of major bile acids by high-performance liquid chromatography without prior hydrolysis. A mixture of bile acids is divided into the free, glyco- and tauro-conjugate groups by thin-layer chromatography. Separation of each group into cholate, ursodeoxycholate, chenodeoxycholate, deoxycholate and lithocholate is attained in two stages on a muBondapak C18 column; first, 0.3% ammonium carbonate-acetonitrile (9:4) is used as a mobile phase for the separation of the last three compounds. Subsequently cholate and ursodeoxycholate are resolved by chromatography in 0.3% ammonium carbonate-acetonitrile (11:4).