Pharmacokinetics and Tissue Distribution Study of Tryptanthrin in Rats by RP-HPLC with DAD Detector

A simple RP-LC-UV method was established for the determination of tryptanthrin in plasma and different tissues of rats. The separation was achieved by HPLC on a C₁₈ column with a mobile phases composed of acetonitrile–water (47:53, v/v), UV detection was used at 251 nm. Good linearity was found between 0.0183–1.1712 μg mL⁻¹ (r ² = 0.999) for plasma and 0.0937–1.7568 μg mL⁻¹ for the tissue samples, respectively (r ² ≥ 0.9932). The intra- and inter-day precisions expressed as the relative standard deviation for the method were 0.92–6.01 and 1.06–9.11 %, respectively. The relative recoveries of tryptanthrin ranged from 95.26 to 97.89 % for plasma and 82.55 to 114.99 % for tissue homogenates (except heart). The developed method was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetics and tissue distribution research after orally administration of a 56-mg kg⁻¹ dose of tryptanthrin to healthy SD rats. The main pharmacokinetics distribution results showed that liver, lung, small intestine, and large intestine were the major distribution tissues of tryptanthrin in rats, and that tryptanthrin had difficulty in crossing the blood–brain barrier.