Determination of the putative cancer chemopreventive flavone tricin in plasma and tissues of mice by HPLC with UV--visible detection.

AHPLC method developed and validated for the determination of tricin in human plasma published previously was cross-validated to allow measurement of the flavone tricin in plasma and tissues of mice. Blank samples of plasma, liver or intestinal mucosa were spiked with tricin at 0.5--4.0, 1.0--8.0 and 5.0--40 microg/mL, respectively. These tricin concentration ranges covered the tricin levels achieved in the mouse tissues in the dose-escalating experiments. Analysis afforded linear calibration curves with regression coefficients of >0.99. Endogenous compounds did not interfere with tricin detection when the detection wavelength was set at 355 nm, the maximum absorbance of tricin. Accuracy and precision were <15% for all concentrations in all matrices except for the precision at the lower limit of quantification (0.5 microg/mL) in mouse plasma, which was 18.4%. Consumption of diet mixed with tricin at 0.05, 0.2 or 0.5% for one week furnished steady-state levels in plasma, liver and small intestine in the 1--3 x 10(-7), 4--22 x 10(-7) and 3--46 x 10(-5) m ranges, respectively. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.