High-performance liquid chromatography of glutathione conjugates

An ion-exchange high-performance liquid chromatographic method is described for the quantitative assay of glutathione (GSH) conjugates derived from endogenous electrophilic substances as well as xenobiotics. GSH (reduced and oxidized forms) and GSH conjugates were condensated with o-phthaldialdehyde to highly fluorescent derivatives and monitored at 338 nm excitation and 450 nm emission wavelengths after separation by ion-exchange HPLC on a 60-5NH2 Polygosil analytical column. The detection limit was 2 pmol for the GSH conjugate of cholesterol epoxide and 6 pmol for the GSH conjugate of oleic acid epoxide. This method allows sensitive determination of all GSH conjugates independent of the chromatographic and spectrophotometric properties of the electrophilic substrates. Using this method we could show for the first time that the endogenous compound oleic acid epoxide is a specific substrate for the cytosolic rat liver GSH S-transferase. The method is applied to the determination of GSH S-transferase activity towards oleic acid epoxide and cholesterol epoxide.