There have been considerable interlaboratory variations in the reported levels of rat brain microsomal cytochrome P450 and associated monooxygenase activities. To ascertain if the variability could be accountable, at least in part, to different methodologies used for microsome preparation, cytochrome P450 monooxygenase components and activities were directly compared herein using brain microsome prepared by various methods. Rat brain microsome isolated using a calcium aggregation method in the presence of dithiothreitol and glycerol contained approximately 100 pmol of cytochrome P450/mg protein. Considerably lower cytochrome P450 levels (e.g. 20-40 pmol/mg protein) were found in brain microsome prepared in a more conventional manner using Tris or phosphate buffers without glycerol and dithiothreitol. The NADPH cytochrome c reductase activity was consistently approximately 23-25 nmol of cytochrome c reduced/min/mg protein, whatever the method of preparation of the brain microsome. Cytochrome P450-associated monooxygenase activities, namely morphine N-demethylase and ethoxycoumarin O-deethylase, were dependent on the amount of protein in the incubation medium, the length of incubation, and the ratio of the concentration of the substrate to the amount of protein in the incubation mixture. The specific activity of morphine N-demethylase was constant over a range of protein concentration, if the ratio of the concentration of the substrate to the protein was kept constant.