Ultrasound assisted extraction in quantifying lutein from chicken liver using high-performance liquid chromatography

Four sample preparation methods, (1) solvent (SOL), (2) saponification and solvent (SP), (3) ultrasound assisted solvent (UA), and (4) saponification and ultrasound assisted solvent (SP-UA), were used for quantifying lutein in chicken liver samples by HPLC. The lutein concentrations obtained by using SOL, UA, SP, and SP-UA were significantly different with values from 10.4 μg/g (UA) to undetected (SOL). Efficiency of the four different methods for extracting lutein from high to low were the UA, SP, SP-UA, and SOL method. The measured value of lutein in the liver sample using the UA method was approximately two and three times higher than that obtained from the SP and SP-UA method, respectively. The methods with saponification significantly affected the stabilities of lutein in liver samples. The lutein concentration measured with the solvent only method was either much lower than any of the other extraction methods or undetectable. This indicated that little lutein in those samples was in a form that could be extracted directly by solvent. Compared with the saponification method, the ultrasound assisted solvent method could effectively extract lutein from sample matrix and thus avoid chemical degradation reactions, which would be especially important for complex biological tissue such as liver.