[Determination of crocin-1 in rabbit plasma and the pharmacokinetics by RP-HPLC].
OBJECTIVE
To develop a sensitive and specific HPLC method for the determination of crocin-1 in rabbit plasma, and study the pharmacokinetics in rabbit.


METHODS
After i.v. administration of crocin-1 in rabbit, the sample could be well purified after precipitation of protein with methanol. Waters spherisorb C18 column (250 mm x 4.6 mm ID, 5 microm) was used and the mobile phase consisted of methanol-acetonitrile-1% aqueous acetic acid (15:10:50) at the flow rate of 1 mL x min(-1), and the UV detection wave length was 440 nm. The column temperature is 25 degrees C.


RESULTS
The calibration curve was linear (r = 0.9997) in the range from 0.86 to 27.54 mg x L(-1) for crocin-1. The lowest detectable concentration of crocin-1 was 0.42 mg x L(-1). After given i.v. crocin-1 in rabbit, the concentration-time curves of crocin-1 was shown to fit two-compartment open model.


CONCLUSIONS
This method is proved to be rapid, precise and reliable enough to be applied to the pharmacokinetics studies of crocin-1 in rabbit.
Tang
Lin
L
College of Life Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China. tanglin66@263.net
Yan
Fang
F
Xu
Ying
Y
Rong
Fang
F
Li
Shuang
S
Chen
Fang
F
D000818:Animals; D002338:Carotenoids / Q000097:blood* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000493:pharmacokinetics*; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods; D027622:Crocus / Q000737:chemistry; D004355:Drug Stability; D035264:Flowers / Q000737:chemistry; D007275:Injections, Intravenous; D008297:Male; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry; D011817:Rabbits
D002338:Carotenoids; C029036:crocin