Simultaneous determination of norisoboldine and its major metabolite in rat plasma by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and its application in a pharmacokinetic study

Norisoboldine (NIB) is one of the main bioactive isoquinoline alkaloids in Linderae Radix. A rapid, selective and sensitive method using UPLC‐ESI/MS was first developed for simultaneous determination of NIB and norisoboldine‐9‐O‐α‐glucuronide (NIB‐Glu), its major metabolite in rat plasma. A one‐step protein precipitation with methanol was employed as sample preparation technique. Chromatographic separation was carried out on an Acquity UPLC BEH C₁₈ column (50 × 2.1 mm, i.d. 1.7 µm) with a gradient mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and water containing 0.1% formic acid. Detection and quantification were performed using a quadrupole mass spectrometer by selective ion reaction‐monitoring mode. Good linearity was achieved using weighted (1/x²) least squares linear regression over the concentration ranges 0.01–2 µg/mL for NIB and 0.025–25 µg/mL for NIB‐Glu. The lower limit of quantification of NIB and NIB‐Glu was 0.01 and 0.025 µg/mL, respectively. The intra‐ and inter‐day precisions (relative standard deviations) of the assay at all three quality control levels were 4.6–14.1% for NIB, and 5.0–12.2% for NIB‐Glu. The accuracies (relative error) were −13.5–8.1% for NIB and −12.8–7.6% for NIB‐Glu, respectively. This developed method was successfully applied to an in vivo pharmacokinetic study in rats after a single intravenous dose of 10 mg/kg NIB. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.