High-performance liquid chromatography of fullerence (C60) in plasma using ultraviolet and mass spectrometric detection.

Fullerence (C60) was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography using both ultraviolet and mass spectrometric detection. The detection limit for each method was 0.05 and 2.0 ng (signal-to-noise ratio (S/N = 2)) per injection, respectively. Rat plasma spiked with C60 (10 micrograms/ml) was extracted using solid phase extraction with a recovery of 62.1% and the coefficient of variation (c.v., n = 5) between intra-day assays was 4.0%. The calibration curve for peak area and plasma C60 concentration with ultraviolet detection showed good linearity (r = 0.996) over the range 0.5-60 micrograms/ml. This newly developed method was applied to rat plasma samples after intravenous administration of C60 solubilized with polyvinylpyrrolidone.