HPLC Determination of Lycopene in Blood Serum

Blood serum sample was pretreated by extraction with n-hexane and by high-speed centrifugation to remove protein.The n-hexane extract was concentrated by evaporation under low temperoture,and finally diluted quantitatively to 10 mL with n-hexane.Ten μL of the treated sample solution was used for HPLC analysis.Shimpack VP-ODS column was used as the stationary phase,and a mixture of acetonitrile and tetrahydrofuran (mixed in the ratio of 55 to 45 by volume) as well as the acetonitrile alone were used as mobile phase successively in the gradient elution.Photometric detection was made at the wavelength of 471 nm.Linearity range was found from 0.01 to 5.00 mg·L-1 of lycopene.Amount of lycopene found in 632 samples of blood serum taken from healthy persons were in the range of 0.06-2.94 mg·L-1 with the mean value of 0.45 mg·L-1.Tests for recovery and precision were made,and values of recovery in the range of 94.4%-99.7% as well as value of RSD′s (n=6) of 7.6% were obtained.