Pharmacokinetic study of three active flavonoid glycosides in rat after intravenous administration of Trollius ledebourii extract by liquid chromatography.

A selective and sensitive reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of orientin-2''-O-beta-L-galactopyranosyl (OGA), orientin and vitexin in rat plasma. Blood samples were collected via the fossa orbitalis vein at time intervals after intravenous administration and the concentrations of the three ingredients in plasma were analyzed by HPLC after the plasma protein had been precipitated directly with methanol. OGA, orientin and vitexin were successfully separated using a C18 column with gradient elution composed of acetonitrile and 0.1% acetic acid and were detected at the detection wavelength of 348 nm. Calibration curves of OGA, orientin and vitexin were generated over the range 0.315-161, 0.326-167 and 0.215-110 microg/mL, respectively. The intra- and inter-day precisions (relative standard deviation) for the analysis of the three analytes were between 1.68 and 8.43% with accuracies (relative error) below 8.55%. The mean extraction recoveries were between 70.35 and 86.42%. The developed method was suitable for simultaneous determination of these three active flavonoid glycosides in rat plasma and was successfully applied to investigate the pharmacokinetics of glycosides from Trollius ledebourii in rats.