Determination of Glycerophospholipids in Biological Material Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Charged Aerosol Detector HPLC-CAD—A New Approach for Isolation and Quantification

The method of using high-performance liquid chromatography with a charged aerosol detector method (HPLC-CAD) was developed for the separation and determination of phospholipids isolated from cell membranes. The established cell lines—normal and neoplastic prostate cells and normal skin fibroblasts and melanoma cells—were selected for the study. Chromatographic separation was performed in the diol stationary phase using a gradient elution based on a mixture of n-hexane, isopropanol and water with the addition of triethylamine and acetic acid as buffer additives. Taking the elements of the Folch and Bligh–Dyer methods, an improved procedure for lipid isolation from biological material was devised. Ultrasound-assisted extraction included three extraction steps and changed the composition of the extraction solvent, which led to higher recovery of the tested phospholipids. This method was validated by assessing the analytical range, precision, intermediate precision and accuracy. The analytical range was adjusted to the expected concentrations in cell extracts of various origins (from 40 µg/mL for PS up to 10 mg/mL for PC). Both precision and intermediate precision were at a similar level and ranged from 3.5% to 9.0%. The recovery for all determined phospholipids was found to be between 95% and 110%. The robustness of the method in terms of the use of equivalent columns was also confirmed. Due to the curvilinear response of CAD, the quantification was based on an internal standard method combined with a power function transformation of the normalized peak areas, allowing the linearization of the signal with an R(2) greater than 0.996. The developed method was applied for the isolation and determination of glycerophospholipids from cell membranes, showing that the profile of the tested substances was characteristic of various types of cells. This method can be used to assess changes in metabolism between normal cells and neoplastic cells or cells with certain pathologies or genetic changes.