A Method for Determination of Lipid-Bound Sialic Acid After Chromatographic Isolation of Brain Gangliosides

The lipid-bound sialic acid determination gives an indirect idea of the ganglioside composition. An attempt at adapting the 'resorcinol method' of Svennerholm using thin-layer chromatography is described in this article. An aliquot of a lipid extract from bovine brain was chromatographed and the ganglioside carrying area was visualised. The sorbent was scrapped and eluted. The sialic acid was hydrolysed with a mixture of resorcinol/hydrochloric acid and the color product formed was extracted with butanol/butylacetate. The color intensity was measured at 580 nm. It was found that the lipid-bound sialic acid in bovine brain was about 780 μg/g fresh tissue. The recovery data calculated by means of a standart solution were 97-102%. This method is particularly useful for some routine diagnostic studies.