title: High-performance liquid chromatography analysis of curcumin in rat plasma: application to pharmacokinetics of polymeric micellar formulation of curcumin.
abstract: A simple, rapid and reliable high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was developed and validated for the determination of curcumin in rat plasma. Plasma was precipitated with acetonitrile after addition of the internal standard (IS), 4-hydroxybenzophenone. Separation was achieved on a Waters muBondapak C(18) column (3.9 x 300 mm, 5 microm) using acetonitrile (55%) and citric buffer, pH 3.0 (45%) as the mobile phase (flow rate = 1.0 mL/min). The UV detection wavelength was 300 and 428 nm for IS and curcumin, respectively. The extraction efficiencies were 97.08, 95.69 and 94.90% for 50, 200 and 1000 ng/mL of curcumin in rat plasma, respectively. The calibration curve was linear over the range 0.02-1 microg/mL with a correlation coefficient of r(2) > 0.999. The intra- and inter-day coefficients of variation were less than 13%, and mean intra- and inter-day errors were less than +/-6% at 50, 200 and 1000 ng/mL of curcumin. This assay was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic studies of both solubilized curcumin and its polymeric micellar formulation in rats. It was found that polymeric micelles increased the half-life of curcumin 162-fold that of solubilized curcumin and increased the volume of distribution (Vd(ss)) by 70-fold.
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2N8.
authors.forename: Zengshuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Anooshirvan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shayeganpour
authors.forename: Dion R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Brocks
authors.forename: Afsaneh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lavasanifar
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Samuel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D003474:Curcumin / Q000493:pharmacokinetics*; D008823:Micelles; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D051381:Rats; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet
chemical_list: D008823:Micelles; D011108:Polymers; D003474:Curcumin