A novel procedure for the quantitative isolation and purification of acyl-coenzyme A esters is presented. The procedure involves two steps: 1) tissue extraction using acetonitrile/2-propanol (3+1, v+v) followed by 0.1M potassium phosphate, pH 6.7, and 2) purification using 2-(2-pyridyl)ethyl functionalized silica gel. Recoveries determined by adding radiolabelled acetyl-, malonyl-, octanoyl-, oleoyl-, palmitoyl-or arachidonyl-coenzyme A to powdered rat liver varied from 93% to 104% for tissue extraction and 83% to 90% for solid phase extraction. The procedure described allows for isolation and purification, with high recoveries, of acyl-coenzyme A esters widely differing in chainlength and saturation.Published methods for the analysis of tissue acyl-coenzyme A content are focused on either short-[1,2], medium-[3] or long-chain acyl-coenzyme A esters [4,5], with the isolation of one acyl-coenzyme A subgroup to the exclusion of others. Recovery of acyl-coenzyme A esters from tissue specimens is often disappointing, with documented recoveries between 30 and 60% [1,5,6]. A general procedure for the isolation of a wide range of acyl-coenzyme A esters, with good documented recoveries from tissues, is presently unavailable.Despite their widely different polarities, we have shown that acylcarnitines (short-, medium-, and long-chain) can be isolated, in a single fraction, from biological samples using organic solvent extraction followed by ion-exchange solid phase extraction (SPE) [7]. This is a highly selective approach, since it combines two orthogonal procedures [8] of isolation: organic solvent extraction and ion-exchange. Extraction procedures for short-chain acyl-coenzyme A esters often use acid precipitation [1,2], but these methods would exclude long-chain acylcoenzyme A esters. Therefore, we investigated extraction procedures originally developed for long-chain acyl-coenzyme A esters, using a mixture of acetonitrile, isopropanol, and aqueous buffer [4]. An SPE anion-exchange column is needed that would be uncharged at pH 7, since elution at high pH would cause hydrolysis of acyl-coenzyme A esters. Finding none commercially available, we ordered custom SPE columns from Supelco, (Bellefonte, PA), packed with 100 mg of 2-(2-pyridyl)ethyl functionalized silica gel. The pKa of these SPE *Corresponding author. Fax: +1 216 368 5162. E-mail address: charles.hoppel@case.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. , we analyzed rat heart, skeletal muscle, and liver and we found that the recovery of malonyl-coenzyme A from liver was much worse than for skeletal musc...