Quantitative determination of cholesterol, sitosterol, and sitostanol in cultured Caco-2 cells by liquid chromatography–atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry

In this study, we describe a simple liquid extraction (methanol/choloroform, 1:1, v/v) method for endogenous free cholesterol and administered sterols extracted from cultured Caco-2 cells. To quantify sterol contents in Caco-2 cells, a new HPLC–APCI-MS method was developed. All the sterols were baseline separated using reversed-phase column (C8, 2.1 mm × 150 mm, 3.5 μm) and isocratic conditions (90%, v/v, methanol–water mixture containing 0.2 mM ammonium acetate). The full scan mass spectra of sterols were measured by an ion trap mass spectrometer equipped with an APCI ion source. The intense fragment ions resulting from the loss of water [M + H–H2O]+ (m/z 369, 395, 397 and 399 for cholesterol, stigmasterol, sitosterol, and sitostanol, respectively) were used for determinations. The absolute extraction recovery of sterols from the spiked cell samples were 109.7 ± 26.2, 105.7 ± 5.1, 109.8 ± 5.0 and 99.0 ± 7.0% for cholesterol, stigmasterol, sitosterol, and sitostanol, respectively. Furthermore, no significant matrix effect was observed for the sterols in the cell samples. The sample assay was based on the internal standard method using stigmasterol as an internal standard. The method was linear over the concentration ranges of 0.45–9.0 μM (cholesterol) and 0.225–7.2 μM (sitosterol and sitostanol). The within- and between-day precision was less than 7% and accuracy ranged from 93.51 to 101.77%. The lowest limit of quantitation (LLOQ) was 0.225 μM for sitosterol and sitostanol, and 0.45 μM for cholesterol. The accuracy range was 95–106% and precision was lower than 9% for all LLOQ values.