title: Quantification of taraxasterol in rat plasma by LC/MS/MS: application to a pharmacokinetic study.
abstract: Taraxasterol, a pentacyclic triterpene from Taraxacum officinale, is one of the main active constituents of the herb. This study developed and validated a highly selective and sensitive liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry for the determination of taraxasterol in rat plasma over the range of 9.0-5000 ng/mL. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a C18 (4.6 × 50 mm, 5.0 µm) column with methanol-isopropanol-water-formic acid (80:10:10:0.1, v/v/v/v) as mobile phase with an isocratic elution. The flow rate was 0.7 mL/min. After adding cucurbitacin IIa as an internal standard (IS), liquid-liquid extraction was used for sample preparation using ethyl acetate. The atmospheric pressure chemical ionization source was applied and operated in positive ion mode. Selected reaction monitoring mode was used for the quantification of transition ions m/z 409.4 → 137.1 for taraxasterol and m/z 503.4 → 113.1 for IS. The mean recoveries of taraxasterol in rat plasma ranged from 85.3 to 87.2%. The matrix effects for taraxasterol were between 98.5 and 104.0%. Intra- and inter-day precision were both <11.8%, and the accuracy of the method ranged from -7.0 to 12.9%. The method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of taraxasterol after oral administration of 7.75, 15.5 and 31.0 mg/kg in rats.
authors: Emergency Department, the First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China.
authors: Nan
authors: N
authors: Zhang
authors: Emergency Department, the First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China.
authors: Li
authors: L
authors: Pang
authors: Emergency Department, the First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China.
authors: Ning
authors: N
authors: Dong
authors: Emergency Department, the First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China.
authors: Dahai
authors: D
authors: Xu
authors: Gastrointestinal Medicine, the First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China.
authors: Hong
authors: H
authors: Xu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000493:pharmacokinetics*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013261:Sterols / Q000097:blood* / Q000493:pharmacokinetics; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D014315:Triterpenes / Q000097:blood* / Q000493:pharmacokinetics
chemical_list: D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal; D013261:Sterols; D014315:Triterpenes; C079988:taraxasterol
keywords: LC/MS/MS; pharmacokinetics; rat plasma; taraxasterol