Simultaneous determination of dopamine, DOPAC and homovanillic acid. Direct injection of supernatants from brain tissue homogenates in a liquid chromatography--electrochemical detection system.

A simple method based on high-performance liquid column chromatography with electro-chemical detection is described for the simultaneous determination of dopamine, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and homovanillic acid (HVA) in discrete brain regions of rats. The supernatant of a tissue homogenate is injected directly onto a liquid chromatograph, thus omitting the commonly adopted adsorption step. Of the four different supports tested Nucleosil C15 (5 micron) was found superior with respect to chromatographic performance. The effects of pH, methanol and the ion-pairing agent hexyl sulfate on the retention were studied. The mobile phase used in the final studies consisted of citrate buffer pH 4.25-methanol (92:8, v/v) containing hexyl sulfate (1.7 . 10(-3) M). Standard curves of dopamine, DOPAC and HVA were found linear up to about 600 pmol per injection for each compound. The precisions of the chromatographic step were (Srel. %): 0.72% (dopamine), 1.26% (DOPAC) and 2.69% (HVA).