One-step intracellular triglycerides extraction and quantitative measurement in vitro

IntroductionMeasurement of intracellular triglyceride content is traditionally performed using Oil Red O stain and isopropanol extraction. However, the assay is semi-quantitative and its simplicity needs improving. Therefore, a novel assay is described to address these problems.MethodsIntracellular triglycerides (TG) were extracted directly by organic solvent Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) without stain. TG concentration dissolved in DMSO was subsequently measured with a commercial assay kit.ResultsA series of experiments were conducted to verify the validity of the new protocol such as the extraction efficiency of DMSO, linear range of the kit and sensitivity of the assay. Our results suggest that this novel assay may be applied in the measurement of intracellular triglyceride accumulation induced by pre-adipocyte differentiation or compounds such as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) agonists.ConclusionThe simplicity and efficiency of the method were validated in this study. Our findings show that this novel assay has potential application in the discovery of anti-diabetic compounds or in the research of cell TG metabolism.