Determination of Total Cholesterol in Hypertriglyceridemic Serums

✍ Scribed by B.R. Morgan; J.D. Artiss; B. Zak

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 261 KB
• Volume: 59
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0026-265X
• DOI: 10.1006/mchj.1998.1579

✦ Synopsis

The determination of serum total cholesterol by a direct reaction involving a Trinder-type enzymic pathway can be severely hampered by the turbidity caused by excessive concentrations of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins such as very-low-density lipoproteins and chylomicrons. This paper describes a clarification procedure that effectively removes such turbidity by a process involving lipolysis of triglycerides and entrapment of the liberated nonesterified fatty acids by alpha cyclodextrin (␣-CD) as a transparent host-guest complex. Many elevated triglyceride conditions can be treated by this enzymic clarification procedure as exemplified by spectral investigations. It may still be necessary to determine triglycerides in order to estimate and correct for the dilution of the serum by large lipoproteins containing the triglycerides. The cloudy or milky appearance of a fasting serum suggests that triglyceride determination probably should be performed in any case simply because the appearance of the specimen provides this clue to such an abnormality.