Preparation and separation of the glucuronide and sulfate conjugates of thyroxine and triiodothyronine

An enzymatic method for synthesis of labelled thyroxine glucuronide (T4G) and triiodothyronine glucuronide (T3G) from labelled thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) is presented. The synthetic glucuronides are completely digested by beta-glucuronidase, with recovery of the parent T4 or T3. They have distinctive elution patterns on HPLC and on Sephadex G25 chromatography, and can be clearly separated from T4 and T3 as well as from synthetic T4 sulfate (T4S) and T3 sulfate (T3S). On LH 20 chromatography, elution of T4G and T3G is intermediate between that of T4 and T3 and that of T4S and T3S. T3G can be well separated from other thyronines by HPLC alone, but T4G coelutes with rT3 on HPLC; these are then separated by adding a Sephadex G25 chromatography step. Biosynthetic 131I-T3G and 125I-T4G from the bile of a cat given 131I-T3 and 125I-T4 had similar HPLC chromatographic patterns to those of synthetic T3G and T4G. That the identified peaks from analysis of the bile were indeed T3G and T4G was confirmed by recovery of the parent T3 and T4 after beta-glucuronidase digestion.