Search

Asarum is a traditional medicine and has been widely used as remedies for inflammatory diseases, toothache, headache, local anesthesia, and aphthous stomatitis in China, Japan, and Korea. Our previous research found that safrole and methyl eugenol were vital compounds that contribute to distinguish the different species and raw Asarum and its processed products apart. The pharmacokinetics of safrole and methyl eugenol after oral administration of Asarum extract has not been reported yet. In this study, a rapid and simple gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC–MS) method that has a complete run time of only 4.5 min was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination and pharmacokinetic study of safrole and methyl eugenol in rat plasma after administration of Asarum extracts. The chromatographic separation was realized on a DB-17 column (30 m × 0.25 mm × 0.25 μ m). And detection was carried out under selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode. Plasma samples were pretreated by n -hexane. The pharmacokinetic parameters provided by this study will be beneficial for further developments and clinical applications of Asarum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Veratrum nigrum L. is a well-known traditional Chinese medicine with a lot of pharmacological activities including antihypertensive, anticancer, and antifungal effects. In the current experiment, a rapid and sensitive UPLC-MS/MS method that takes only 7 min run time has been established and validated for simultaneous determination of eight bioactive compounds including cyclopamine, jervine, veratramine, polydatin, quercetin, apigenin, resveratrol, and veratrosine in rat plasma. The chromatographic separation of analytes and internal standard was performed on a Phenyl-Hexyl column (2.1 × 100 mm , 1.7 μm) with the mobile phase consisting of water (0.1% formic acid) and acetonitrile at a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. An electrospray ionization (ESI) source was used to detect the samples in both positive and negative ion modes. The intra- and interday precisions of the compounds were less than 9.5% and the accuracy ranged from -10.8% to 10.4%. The extraction recoveries of the compounds were in the range of 85.1 ± 1.5 % to 102.6 ± 8.0 % , and the matrix effect ranged from 91.2 ± 4.5 % to 113.8 ± 1.5 %. According to the results of the stability test, the eight compounds have good stability under various conditions and the relative standard deviation (RSD) less than 13.2%. The pharmacokinetic parameters of the eight compounds in rat plasma after oral administration of Veratrum nigrum L. extract were successfully determined by the established UPLC-MS/MS method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]