Rapid Quantification of Astilbin in Rat Plasma by Liquid Chromatography-tandem Mass Spectrometry and Its Application to Pharmacokinetic Study

Astilbin is a potential immunosuppressive agent with minor cytotoxicity. Its oral bioavailability is supposed to be rather low and therefore a sensitive analytical method is required for its pharmacokinetic study after oral administration. A simple, sensitive and rapid liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry（LC-MS/MS） method was developed and validated for the determination of astilbin in rat plasma. Plasma samples were subjected to liquid-liquid extraction with ethyl acetate and separated by reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography（HPLC） with methanol-0.01%（volume fraction） formic acid（50：50, volume ratio） as mobile phase. Quantitive determination was achieved on negative LC-MS/MS by a multiple reaction moitoring method with transitions m/z 449.1→150.9（quantifier） and m/z 449.1→284.9（qualifier） for astilbin and m/z 128.9→42.0 for internal standard（IS）. A lower limit of quantification（LLOQ） of ng/mL was achieved within a short cycle time of 3.4 min. The method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study involving oral and intravenous administrations of 6 mg/kg astilbin to six rats.