Abstract
Triglycerides and phospholipids 0.5-2mg (wet weight) of human liver material obtained by the fine-needle aspiration biopsy technique can be estimated after chloroform:methanol extraction by the determination of lipid phosphorus and glyceride glycerol. The methods are based on the colorimetric determination of inorganic phosphate after oxidation of the phospholipids and the enzymatic fluorometric determination of glycerol after complete hydrolysis of the triglycerides, catalyzed by purified pancreatic lipase. The accumulation of lipids is then expressed as the increase in the molar ratio of triglycerides over phospholipids.