Quantitative determination of euphol in rat plasma by LC-MS/MS and its application to a pharmacokinetic study

• Published in: Biomedical chromatography Vol. 28; no. 9; pp. 1229 - 1234
• Main Authors: Xie, Xu, Li, Yongning, Gao, Dongna, Zhang, Yu, Ren, Yanbo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2014
• Subjects: Animals; Chromatography, Liquid - methods; euphol; Lanosterol - analogs & derivatives; Lanosterol - blood; Lanosterol - chemistry; Lanosterol - pharmacokinetics; LC-MS/MS; Linear Models; Male; pharmacokinetics; rat plasma; Rats; Rats, Wistar; Reproducibility of Results; Sensitivity and Specificity; Tandem Mass Spectrometry - methods
• ISSN: 0269-3879; 1099-0801
• DOI: 10.1002/bmc.3151

ABSTRACT Euphol is a potential pharmacologically active ingredient isolated from Euphorbia kansui. A simple, rapid, and sensitive method to determine euphol in rat plasma was developed based on liquid chromatography‐tandem mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS) for the first time. The analyte and internal standard (IS), oleanic acid, were extracted from plasma with methanol and chromatographied on a C18 short column eluted with a mobile phase of methanol–water–formic acid (95:5:0.1, v/v/v). Detection was performed by positive ion atmospheric pressure chemical ionization in selective reaction monitoring mode. This method monitored the transitions m/z 409.0 → 109.2 and m/z 439.4 → 203.2 for euphol and IS, respectively. The assay was linear over the concentration range 27–9000 ng/mL, with a limit of quantitation of 27 ng/mL. The accuracy was between –7.04 and 4.11%, and the precision was <10.83%. This LC‐MS/MS method was successfully applied to investigate the pharmacokinetic study of euphol in rats after intravenous (6 mg/kg) and oral (48 mg/kg) administration. Results showed that the absolute bioavailability of euphol was approximately 46.01%. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.