title: Simultaneous quantification of cryptotanshinone and its active metabolite tanshinone IIA in plasma by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).
abstract: A rapid and sensitive method for the simultaneous determination of cryptotanshinone and its active metabolite tanshinone IIA in rat plasma was developed and well validated, using high-performance liquid chromatographic separation with tandem mass spectrometric detection. This method entailed a single step of liquid-liquid extraction with ethyl acetate from a small volume of plasmas. The analytes and internal standard diazepam were baseline separated on a Shim-pack VP-ODS analytical column. Detection was performed on a triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer equipped with electrospray ionization source operated under selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode. The method was linear in the concentration range of 1-100 ng/ml for both tanshinone IIA and cryptotanshinone. The intra- and inter-day precisions (R.S.D.%) were within 10.2% for both analytes. Deviation of the assay accuracies was within +/-12.0% for both analytes. Both analytes were proved to be stable during all sample storing, preparation and analytic procedures. The method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study after an oral administration of cryptotanshinone to rats with a dose of 20 mg/kg. With the lower limits of quantification at 1.0 ng/ml for tanshinone IIA and 0.2 ng/ml for cryptotanshinone, this method was proved to be sensitive enough and reproducible for the pharmacokinetics study of both tanshinones.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics E04#, China Pharmaceutical University, 1 Shennong Road, Nanjing 210038, China.
authors.forename: Haiping
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.forename: Guangji
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Zuoqi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ding
mesh_terms: D045784:Abietanes; D000818:Animals; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D004355:Drug Stability; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000493:pharmacokinetics; D010616:Phenanthrenes / Q000097:blood* / Q000493:pharmacokinetics; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D021241:Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization
chemical_list: D045784:Abietanes; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal; D010616:Phenanthrenes; C021751:tanshinone; C037886:cryptotanshinone