HPLC determination and pharmacokinetics of osthole in rat plasma after oral administration of Fructus Cnidii extract.

A simple and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method is developed for the determination of osthole in rat plasma and applied to a pharmacokinetic study in rats after administration of Fructus Cnidii extract. After addition of fluocinonide as an internal standard, plasma samples are extracted with diethyl ether. HPLC analysis of the extracts is performed on a Hypersil ODS2 analytical column, using methanol-0.4% acetic acid (65:35, v/v) as the mobile phase. The UV detector is set at 322 nm. The standard curve is linear over the range 0.0520-5.20 microg/mL (r = 0.9979). The mean extraction recoveries of osthole at three concentrations were 81.0%, 91.2%, and 90.7%, respectively. The intra- and interday precisions have relative standard deviations from 1.9% to 4.9%. The limit of quantitation is 0.0520 microg/mL. The HPLC method developed can easily be applied to the determination and pharmacokinetic study of osthole in rat plasma after the animals are given the Fructus Cnidii extract. The plasma concentration of osthole from six rats showed a Cmax of 0.776 +/- 0.069 microg/mL at Tmax of 1.0 +/- 0.3 h.