Summary
The complex background of interfering substances makes plasma pretreatment necessary before performing liquid-chromatographic quantitation of circulating serotonin. We compared two isolation procedures (extraction into butanol and isolation on a weak cation-exchange resin) before chromatography for measuring free serotonin from human plasma. Sensitivity, specificity and recovery were all evaluated. The cation-exchange resin yielded chromatograms with no interfering peaks, was cheaper and took less processing time than butanol extraction. We conclude that the clean-up of human plasma by a cation-exchange resin is suitable and accurate for routine liquid-chromatographic determination of circulating serotonin.
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This work was partially supported by a grant from theConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Roma, Italy, ‘Gruppo Nazionale Cardiorespiratorio’.
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Marasini, B., Biondi, M.L. & Agostoni, A. Liquid chromatographic determination of free serotonin in human plasma. La Ricerca Clin. Lab. 17, 149–154 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02909409
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02909409