Determination of Estrogens by High Performance Liquid Chromatography with Pre-Label Derivatization with 2-(4-Carboxy)-5,6-Dimethylbenzimidazole (II): Shortening of Analysis Time and Application to Monitoring Estrogen in Serum From In-Vitro Fertilization Embryo Transfer (IVF-ET) Patients

Abstract

We report a sensitive high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for determination of free and conjugated estrogens (estrone, estradiol and estriol) by a fluorescent pre-labeling regent, 2-(4-carboxyphenyl)-5,6-dimethylbenzimidazole, with modification of previous work. The modified method was also tried, in preliminary work, for diagnosis of the in-vitro fertilization embryo transfer (IVF-ET) process. The reagent volumes were changed to one-tenth, derivatization conditions were changed to mild conditions at 40 C, and a solid-phase extraction process by SEP-PAK could be omitted after restudy of reaction conditions. As a result analysis time could be shorted within 40 min. The proposed HPLC method was applied to monitoring of free and conjugated estrogens in the patients who attend in-vitro fertilization embryo transfer (IVF-ET). The subsequent increase of free and conjugated estrone, estradiol and estriol was observed with the progress of follicle growth following ovulation stage in the IVF-ET process. We tried to plot estrogens for assist of clinical diagnosis of IVF-ET. The free estrone: 200-600 pg/ml, estradiol: 200-600 pg/ml and estriol: 100-300 pg/ml, conjugate estrone: 1000-5000 pg/ml, estradiol: 3000-8000 pg/ml and estriol: 2000-7000 pg/ml) in the patients without hormone disease were observed before human chorionic gonadotropin stimulation (hCG) on IVF-ET process. It was expected that free estrogen values, especially E1 and E3 could be use as validation products for diagnosis of hormone disease in IVF-ET process.