Research Article Quantitative Analysis of Sphingomyelin by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography after Enzymatic Hydrolysis

which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Sphingomyelin is the most abundant sphingolipid in mammalian cells and is mostly present in the plasma membrane. A new analytical method using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed to quantify sphingomyelin in mouse plasma and tissues, 3T3-L1 cells, rat aortic smooth muscle cells, and HT-29 cells. Sphingomyelin and dihydrosphingomyelin, an internal standard, were separated by high-performance thin-layer chromatography and simultaneously hydrolyzed with sphin-golipid ceramide N-deacylase and sphingomyelinase to release sphingosine and dihydrosphingosine, respectively. Sphingomyelin content was measured by HPLC following o-phthalaldehyde derivatization. Sphingomyelin concentrations in 3T3-L1 cells, rat aortic smooth muscle cells, and HT-29 cells were 60.10±0.24, 62.69±0.08, and 58.38±0.37 pmol/μg protein, respectively, whereas those in brain, kidney, and liver of ICR mice were 55.60±0.43, 43.75±0.21, and 22.26±0.14 pmol/μg protein. The sphingomyelin concentration in mouse plasma was 407.40 ± 0.31μM. The limits of detection and quantification for sphingomyelin were 5 and 20 pmol, respectively, in the HPLC analysis with fluorescence detection. This sensitivity was sufficient for analyzing sphingomyelin in biological samples. In conclusion, this analytical method is a sensitive and specific technique for quantifying sphingomyelin and was successfully applied to diverse biological samples with excellent reproducibility. 1