Liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry for the quantification of mitiglinide in human plasma: validation and its application to pharmacokinetic studies

A sensitive and specific method was developed and validated for the determination of mitiglinide in human plasma using liquid chromatographic separation with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometric detection. Acidified plasma samples were extracted with ethyl acetate. The chromatographic separation was performed on an Agilent Zorbax Eclipse Plus C(18) column with a mobile phase of methanol-10 mm ammonium acetate solution at a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. Analytes were detected with an Agilent 6410 Triple qudrupole mass spectrometer equipped with an electrospray ionization source in positive multiple reaction monitoring mode: m/z 316.2 (precursor ion) to 298.2 (product ion) for mitiglinide and m/z 318.2 (precursor ion) to 120.2 (product ion) for the internal standard. This method was validated over a linear range of 0.5-4000 ng/mL for mitiglinide in human plasma. The lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) was 0.5 ng/mL, while a relative standard deviation (RSD) was less than 3.9%. The intra- and inter-run precision (as RSD, %) obtained from three validation runs were all less than 15%. The validated method was successfully used to analyze human plasma samples for application in pharmacokinetic studies.