Simultaneous determination of lidamycin enediyne chromophore (LDC) and its aromatized derivative (LDCA) using puerarin as internal standard in rat plasma by LC-MS/MS

Lidamycin (LDM), a promising enediyne antitumor antibiotic, was quantified by detecting lidamycin enediyne chromophore (LDC) using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS) for the first time. A simple, rapid and reliable method was developed and validated to determine LDC and its aromatized derivative (LDCA) simultaneously in plasma. Puerarin was used as an internal standard (IS), and plasma samples were pretreated with one‐step precipitation by acetonitrile. Separation was achieved on a reverse‐phase C₁₈ column with a mobile phase composed of methanol and water containing 5 mm ammonium acetate at pH 3.5 in gradient elution mode. Detection was performed on a triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer using electrospray ionization (ESI) by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) in the negative ion mode. Good linearity was obtained over the concentration range of 0.2–100 µg/mL for LDM. Precision and accuracy were validated by RSD% values in the range of 2.6–13.0% and RE% values between ?4.6 and 3.8%, respectively. In addition, no specificity and matrix effects were observed. The recovery was found to be 99.2–111.0% and stability in various conditions was found to be acceptable. This method was applied in preclinical pharmacokinetic studies for routine monitoring of LDM in rat plasma. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.