Simultaneous determination of six hydrophilic components in rat plasma after oral administration of Jitai tablet by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry: application to a pharmacokinetic study.

A liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of amygdalin (ADL), danshensu (DSS), ferulic acid (FA), hydroxysafflor yellow A (HSYA), salvianolic acid A (SAA) and salvianolic acid B (SAB) in rat plasma. Plasma samples were pretreated by protein precipitation with acetonitrile. LC separation was performed on a Zorbax Eclipse Plus C18 column (3.0mm×100mm I.D, 1.8μm) with gradient elution using a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile-0.1% formic acid in water at a flow rate of 0.3mL/min. ESI-MS spectra was acquired in negative ion multiple reaction monitoring mode. The mass transition ion-pair was followed as m/z 456.0→323.1, m/z 197.3→178.8, m/z 193.0→133.9, m/z 611.1→325.2, m/z 493.0→295.0, and m/z 717.0→519.0 for ADL, DSS, FA, HSYA, SAA and SAB, respectively. All analytes showed good linearity over a wide concentration range (r>0.99). The lower limit of quantification was 7ng/mL, 2ng/mL, 4ng/mL, 1ng/mL, 2ng/mL, and 4ng/mL for ADL, DSS, FA, HSYA, SAA and SAB, respectively. The mean recovery of the analytes ranged from 86.29% to 93.16%. The intra- and inter-day precisions were in the range of 1.50-9.98% and the accuracies were between 91.17% and 99.46%. The validated method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of the six hydrophilic components in rat plasma after oral administration of Jitai tablet.