Distribution study of tryptanthrin in rat tissues by HPLC and its relationship with meridian tropism of indigo naturalis in traditional Chinese medicine

The aim of the present study is to characterize the distribution of tryptanthrin (TRYP) in rat tissues following oral administration at a dose of 100 mg/kg and its relationship with meridian tropism (MT) of indigo naturalis (IN) in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). For quantitative analysis in biological samples, a sensitive, inexpensive and accurate high‐performance liquid chromatographic method was developed and validated with 2‐hydroxy acetophenone as internal standard, a Shimadzu C₁₈ column and water–acetonitrile (55:45, v/v) as mobile phase. Acceptable intra‐day and inter‐day precision at high, medium and low concentration was acquired with RSD ranging from 0.87 to 5.22% and from 1.25 to 6.47%, respectively. Good assay and extraction recoveries were obtained with a single and relatively fast step to precipitate protein. The extraction recovery of TRYP ranged from 87.5 to 94.5 %. TRYP concentration was highest in the liver and remained for a much longer time than in other tissues. It could also be detected in kidney, lung, heart and spleen, but not in brain under the experimental conditions. The results confirmed the traditional knowledge of TCM that MT of IN belongs to the liver meridians and demonstrated that TRYP is one of the active constituents of the MT of IN. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.