A quantitative analysis of ethanol and acetaldehyde expired by inbred mouse strains.

Expired ethanol and acetaldehyde were measured after an oral injection of ethanol in C57BL/6J and DBA/2J mouse strains by a combination of several techniques in a sequence involving a method for trapping expired radioactive compounds, separation of compounds by gas chromatography, isolation of radioactive ethanol and acetaldehyde, and their quantitative analysis by liquid scintillation spectrophotometry. With the specific activities used in evaluation of the technique (0.1 Ci/mole, acetaldehyde; 1.1 Ci/mol, ethanol) the lower limit of sensitivity using 500 microliters from a 10 ml trap is 955 pmoles for acetaldehyde and 101 pmoles for ethanol. However, in the animal experiments, injected ethanol has a specific activity of 1.1 Ci/mol which would make the specific activity of expired metabolically formed acetaldehyde the same. This results in a lower limit of sensitivity for acetaldehyde of 80 pmoles. The two strains were monitored for 80 min following an oral injection of 3.8 g/Kg of (2-14C) ethanol. Comparing the two strains on the expiration of each compound the curves were identical.