Development and Validation of an HPLC–UV Method for the Determination of Insulin in Rat Plasma: Application to Pharmacokinetic Study

A simple, sensitive high performance liquid chromatographic method with UV detection was developed and validated for determination of insulin in rat plasma, using methyl paraben as an internal standard. Insulin was extracted from plasma by a liquid–liquid extraction with a mixture of dichloromethane and n-hexane (1:1, v/v) followed by an acidic back extraction. Chromatographic separation was achieved isocratically with a Phenomenex® C₁₈ analytical column (150 × 4.6 mm ID, 5 μm) at ambient room temperature. The calibration curves were linear within a concentration range of 0.7–8.4 μg mL^?1 (r ² = 0.9994). The inter-day and intra-day accuracy and precision were ≤3.33 and ≤5.55%. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were 0.35 and 0.7 μg mL^?1. The average recovery was 87.86% for insulin and 83.52% for methyl paraben. Insulin containing plasma samples were stable at ?20 °C for 7 days. Validated HPLC method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of insulin in streptozotocin induced diabetic rats.