TECHNIQUE FOR SEPARATION AND ESTIMATION OF ANDROSTERONE, AETIOCHOLANOLONE AND DEHYDROEPIANDROSTERONE BY USE OF THIN-LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHY
ABSTRACT A method is described for the quantitative estimation of urinary androsterone, aetiocholanolone and dehydroepiandrosterone which employs enzymatic hydrolysis for glucuronide conjugates, solvolysis for sulphate esters, ascending thin-layer chromatography, elution and spectrophotometric quantitation of the eluted steroids as Zimmermann chromogens. The reliability of the method was established by recovery experiments and by duplicate assays. Its specificity was confirmed by u. v. and i. r. spectral analysis of the urinary components eluted from the thin-layer chromatograms and by gas-liquid chromatography of these components and their trimethyl-silyl derivatives. Since the method is relatively rapid and requires small samples of urine it has the advantage of being suitable for large-scale clinical determinations.