Procedure for the determination of eight cholesterol oxides in poultry meat using on-column and solvent venting capillary gas chromatography.

A procedure for the determination of eight relevant cholesterol oxides in poultry meat has been developed. The method consists of the enrichment of cholesterol oxides by means of the combined use of solid-phase fractionation and thin-layer chromatography. Florisil and silica columns of 10 g permitted the handling of the total cholesterol oxides content included in the lipid bulk obtained after the Folch's extraction of 20 g of muscle meat. The determination of cholesterol oxides under their trimethylsilyl derivatives was performed by using capillary gas chromatography. The use of a fused-silica open tubular capillary column 30 m x 0.25 mm I.D. coated with 5% phenylmethylsilicone and with a film width of 0.25 mu m permitted the separation of all the species. Two modes of injection (on-column and solvent venting) were evaluated and compared for the analysis of cholesterol oxides. On-column capillary gas chromatography (cGC) gave better absolute areas relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) values: 3% to 6% vs. 5% to 7% for solvent venting cGC. Regression analysis for each cholesterol oxide was performed for the two modes of injection. The possibility of large volume injection (10 mu l) by using the solvent venting mode was also evaluated in order to increase the sensitivity of the detection of cholesterol oxides. R.S.D. values for absolute areas ranging from 6% to 14% were obtained. The validation of the method was carried out within the range of 0.1-1 ppm. Absolute and relative recovery values ranging from 80% to 100% were obtained, Statistical analysis revealed that the method was reproducible. cGC-mass spectrometry was also used to confirm the peaks detected by cGC: the total ion chromatogram mode was used for the analysis of samples containing concentrations down to 0.1 ppm of cholesterol oxides. The analysis of fresh and cooked chicken meat revealed the presence of cholesterol oxides proceeding from the autoxidation of the cholesterol B-ring. Finally, saponification was found to be not as accurate as the described procedure for cholesterol oxides analysis.