In 1987, Miyazawa et al. established the methodology known as chemiluminescence detection-high performance liquid chromatography (CL-HPLC), which is both sensitive and selective enough to measure lipid-class hydroperoxide levels in foods, as well as in biological samples such as blood plasma and tissues (1-9). A unique post-column chemiluminescence reagent consisting of cytochrome c and luminol in an alkaline borate-buffered solution is commonly utilized for CL-HPLC. Using CL-HPLC, formation of mono-, bis-, and tris-hydroperoxides was found to occur during the initial stage of triacylglycerol oxidation in food oils (6, 7). Animal studies have shown that long-term fish oil consumption results in a high risk of membrane phospholipid peroxidation (i.e., abnormal accumulation of phosphatidylcholine hydroperoxide, PCOOH, together with an increased need for a-tocopherol as a membrane antioxidant (9). Moreover, membrane phospholipid peroxidation (PCOOH accumulation) increases with aging (senescence) (2). These findings strongly suggest the importance of determining lipid peroxidation levels in food and biological systems (refer to comprehensive reviews (10) for background information relating to lipid peroxidation).
Pure Hydroperoxide Standards for QuantificationOne of the challenges faced by many researchers in measuring lipid hydroperoxides using CL-HPLC or other HPLC techniques is finding suitably pure hydroperoxide standards (11,12). Lipid hydroperoxides prepared from photo-or free radical-oxidized lipids are generally used as standard compounds. However, the purity of the hydroperoxides in such standards is not necessarily high (12). Impurities in the standards can be attributed to a number of analytical errors.Over 50 y ago it was reported that under acidic conditions, some vinyl ethers can react with organic hydroperoxides to form perketals (13,14). Thus, we predicted that this reaction could be applied for the preparation of pure lipid hydroperoxides, which was achieved using a vinyl-ether molecule (2-methoxypropene, MxP) (15). The procedures require protecting the hydroperoxide group as a perketal using MxP. The perketal is then separated using HPLC, and the pure hydroperoxide is regenerated from the perketal.The above-mentioned reactions are useful for the preparation of lipid hydroperoxides (e.g., PCOOH), although the reactions sometimes yield unknown brown byproducts. Hence, we recently reported a method to improve the reaction conditions, and demonstrated the synthesis of pure PCOOH without byproduct formation (16). In particular, the PCOOH isomer 1-palmitoyl-2-(9-hydroperoxyoctadecadienoyl)-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (16:0/9-HpODE PC) was synthetically prepared ( Fig. 1) as follows: linoleic acid was oxidized for 48 h at 40˚C. Among the resulting oxidation products, 9-hydroperoxyoctadecadienoic acid (9-HpODE) was chromatographically fractionated, and its hydroperoxide group was protected by MxP. The protected fatty acid was subsequently purified to yield 9-HpODE, in which the hydroperoxide group was prot...