Metabolite Profile of Salidroside in Rats by Ultraperformance Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Quadrupole-Linear Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry.

In the present work, the salidroside metabolite profile in rat urine was investigated, and subsequently the metabolic pathways of salidroside were proposed. After administrations of salidroside at an oral dose of 100 or 500 mg/kg, rat urine samples were collected and pretreated with methanol to precipitate the proteins. The pretreated samples were analyzed by an Acquity ultraperformance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled with an HSS T3 column and detected by quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (Q-TOF-MS) or high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with hybrid triple-quadrupole linear ion trap mass spectrometry (HPLC/Q-trap-MS). A total of eight metabolites were detected and identified on the basis of the characteristics of their protonated ions in the urine samples. The results elucidated that salidroside was metabolized via glucuronidation, sulfation, deglycosylation, hydroxylation, methylation, and dehydroxylation pathways in vivo.