Quantitative determination of hederagenin in rat plasma and cerebrospinal fluid by ultra fast liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method

A rapid, sensitive and selective method was developed for the quantitative determination of hederagenin in rat plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) by ultra fast liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UFLC-MS/MS). It has been successfully applied in a pharmacokinetic study of hederagenin in the central nervous system (CNS). Sample pretreatment involved a simple protein precipitation with methanol and a one-step extraction with ethyl acetate. Separation was carried out in a Shim-pack XR-ODS II (75 mm x 2.0 mm, id., 2.1 mu m) column with gradient elution at a flow rate of 0.35 mL/min. The mobile phase was 5 mM ammonium acetate and acetonitrile. Detection was performed in a triple-quadruple tandem mass spectrometer by multiple-reaction-monitoring mode via electrospray ionization. A linear calibration curve for hederagenin was obtained over a concentration range of 0.406 (lower limit of quantification, LLOQ) to 203 ng/mL (r(2) > 0.99) for both plasma and CSF. The intra-day and inter-day precision (relative standard deviation, RSD) values were less than 15%. At all quality control (QC) levels, the accuracy (relative error, RE) was within -9.0% and 11.1% for plasma and CSF, respectively. The pharmacokinetics results indicated that hederagenin could pass through the blood-brain barrier. This UFLC-MS/MS method demonstrates higher sensitivity and sample throughput than previous methods. It was also successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic study of hederagenin following oral administration of Fructus akebiae extract in rats. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.