Simultaneous determination of vitamin E homologs in chicken meat by liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection

A simple and reliable method for the simultaneous determination of all eight homologs of Vitamin E in chicken meat is described. All analytes, including the internal standard (alpha-tocopherol acetate), were eluted within 35 min and detected using their native fluorescence (295 nm excitation and 330 nm emission). Chromatography using hexane based eluent on a normal phase silica column included an initial column conditioning step to prevent irreversible adsorption of tocopherols and tocotrienols on silica. Lowest detectable levels of alpha-tocopherol, gamma-tocopherol, alpha-tocotrienol, beta-tocotrienol, gamma-tocotrienol and delta-tocotrienol were 0.73, 0.86, 1.0, 1.2, 1.7 and 1.3 ng, respectively.