Determination of high density lipoprotein cholesterol in venous and capillary whole blood

A procedure is presented and evaluated for separation of plasma high density lipoprotein from either capillary or venous whole blood. The lipoprotein is separated by adding 50 microliter of sample to 250 microliter of 0.15 M NaCl solution containing 99.9 g/l polyethyleneglycol 6000, 0.0374 g/l dextran sulfate (Mr 15,000) and 2.6 mM Mg2+. After gentle mixing for a few minutes and standing 10 min at room temperature, mixtures are centrifuged (1,500 g) for 10 min and cholesterol is measured on 200 microliter of supernatant by an enzymatic-colorimetric method. Comparison studies demonstrate a good correlation between high density lipoprotein cholesterol in plasma and capillary or venous whole blood. The procedure is simple, has the advantage of using either K3-EDTA-anticoagulated whole blood, without the need of centrifugation, or capillary whole blood which can also be collected away from the laboratory.