Separation of sulfated bile acids by high-performance liquid chromatography.

In order to establish a new method for stimultaneous determination of sulfated bile acids without deconjugation, separation of 3-sulfates of unconjugated, glyco- and tauroconjugated bile acids by high-performance liquid chromatography has been undertaken. The preliminary experiment indicated that reversed phase chromatography on an ODS SC-02 column using ammonium carbonate aqueous solution/acetonitrile as a mobile phase would be promising. The ratio of peak width to retention time was varied depending upon the salt concentration. The content of water in mobile phase exerted an influence on the capacity ratio to a certain extent, but not on the resolution. The use of 0.5% ammonium carbonate/acetonitrile (26:8 and 20:8, v/v) was found to be suitable for complete resolution of sulfated cholate, chenodeoxycholate, deoxycholate, lithocholate and their glyco- and tauro-conjugates.