Simultaneous detection of ubiquinol and ubiquinone in human plasma as a marker of oxidative stress.

A method is described for the simultaneous detection of ubiquinol-10 and ubiquinone-10 in human plasma. In this procedure, heparinized human plasma was mixed with 5 vol of methanol and 10 vol of hexane. After vigorous shaking and centrifugation, an aliquot of the hexane phase (5 microl) was injected immediately and directly onto a reversed-phase HPLC to minimize the oxidation of ubiquinol to ubiquinone. A post-separation, on-line reduction column converts ubiquinone to ubiquinol which is quantified by electrochemical detection. The detection limit of plasma ubiquinol-10 and ubiquinone-10 is about 4 nM with excellent reproducibilities. Tocopherols, lycopene, and beta-carotene are also detectable in this method. In addition, free cholesterol, and cholesteryl esters can be quantified by their absorption at 210 nm. Using this method we have determined the ratio of ubiquinol to ubiquinone is about 95/5 in human plasma from healthy donors. We suggest that this method will be useful since the ratio of ubiquinol to ubiquinone has been suggested as a good marker of oxidative stress.