Determination of gambogic acid in dog plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography for a pharmacokinetic study.

A rapid, simple and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography method for the quantification of gambogic acid in dog plasma was developed and validated. After acidification with hydrochloric acid, dog plasma was extracted with ethyl acetate and determined by HPLC. The analysis was carried out on a reversed-phase C(18) analytical column. The mobile phase consisted of a mixture of methanol-0.05% phosphoric acid (94:6, v/v), and the column temperature was maintained at 35 degrees C. A constant mobile phase flow rate of 1.0 mL/min was employed throughout the analyses. The ultraviolet detector was set at 360 nm. Chromatographic separation was achieved in less than 10 min and the calibration curve was linear over a concentration range of 0.156-20 microg/mL. The intra-assay and inter-assay variability values were less than 10.0%. The accuracy ranged from 93.0 to 104.2%. The established method has been successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of gambogic acid in dogs.