Metabolism and disposition of trifluoperazine in the rat. I. A thin-layer chromatographic method for the measurement of trifluoperazine and its metabolites in rat tissues.

A method has been developed for quantitative measurement of trifluoperazine and its metabolites, 7-hydroxytrifluoperazine and desmethyltrifluoperazine, in rat organs. Trifluoperazine sulfoxide could also be assayed, but it proved to represent a very minor part only of total biotransformation products in tissues. Alkalinized tissue homogenates were extracted with di-isopropyl ether. Following removal of the bulk of lipids, the compounds to be quantitated were separated by thin-layer chromatography and measured by ultraviolet reflectance photometry on the plates. In recovery experiments, the method proved to possess a high reproducibility. The sensitivity limit for quantitative determination was about 0.1 nmol per extract, and the limit of detectability was 0.025-0.05 nmol. The applicability of the method was shown by analyzing the tissues of rats that had received 12.3 micronmol of trifluoperazine, ip, per kg.