Simultaneous quantification of hyperin, reynoutrin and guaijaverin in mice plasma by LC-MS/MS: application to a pharmacokinetic study.

A specific and sensitive LC-MS/MS assay was developed to simultaneously quantify three structurally similar flavonoid glycosides - hyperin, reynoutrin and guaijaverin - in mouse plasma. Biosamples were prepared by solid-phase extraction. Isocratic chromatographic separation was performed on an AichromBond-AQ C18 column (250 × 2.1 mm, 5 μm) with methanol-acetonitrile-water-formic acid (20:25:55:0.1) as the mobile phase. Detection of hyperin, reynoutrin, guaijaverin and internal standard [luteolin-7-O-β-d-apiofuranosyl-(1 → 6)-β-d-glucopyranoside] was achieved by ESI-MS/MS in the negative ion mode using m/z 463 → m/z 300, m/z 433 → m/z 300, m/z 433 → m/z 300 and m/z 579 → m/z 285 transitions, respectively. Linear concentration ranges of calibration curves were 4.0-800.0 ng/mL for hyperin and reynoutrin and 8.0-1600.0 ng/mL for guaijaverin when 100 μL of plasma was analyzed. We used this validated method to study the pharmacokinetics of hyperin, reynoutrin and guaijaverin in mice following oral and intravenous administration. All three quercetin-3-O-glycosides showed poor oral absorption in mice, and the absolute bioavailability of hyperin after oral administration of 100 mg/kg was 1.2%. Pretreatment with verapamil increased the peak concentration and area under the concentration-time curve of hyperin, which were significantly higher than the control values. The half-life of hyperin with verapamil was significantly prolonged compared with that of the control.