A RAPID UPLC-MS/MS METHOD FOR SIMULTANEOUS DETERMINATION OF FIVE ANTHRAQUINO- NES IN RAT PLASMA: APPLICATION TO A PHARMACOKINETIC STUDY

LIN ZHANG¹, JIN-HUA CHANG¹, LI-YAN LIU¹, QIANG FU², CUI-ZHE LIU^1,*

¹Hebei Province Key Laboratory of Research and Development for Chinese Medicine, Chengde Medical College, Chengde, Hebei 067000, P. R. China - ²Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, No. 103, Wenhua Road, Shenyang, 110016, P. R. China

Introduction: A rapid and simple UPLC-MS/MS method was established and validated for simultaneous determination of aloe-emodin, rhein, emodin, chrysophanol and physcion in rat plasma.

Materials and methods: After sample preparation by a simple protein precipitation, the mass detection was conducted in mul- tiple reaction monitoring using an API 6500 triple quadruple in negative-ion mode with an electrospray ionization interface. Gradient elution was performed with a mobile phase composed of acetonitrile and water containing 0.1% formic acid at a flow rate of 0.6 mL/min.

Results: The retention time of emodin, aloe-emodin, chrysophanol, physcion, rhein and IS was at 1.54, 1.04, 1.67, 1.69, 1.09 and 1.59 min, respectively.

Conclusion: This method exhibited acceptable precision, accuracy, recoveries, matrix effect and carry-over effect, which was superior to previous methods in analysis time and sample throughput.