Identification of gut-derived metabolites of maslinic acid, a bioactive compound fromOlea europaeaL

SCOPE Maslinic acid has been described to exert a chemopreventive activity in colon cancer. Hereby, we determined maslinic acid and its metabolites in the rat intestine previous oral administration as a first step in elucidating whether this triterpene might be used as a nutraceutical. METHODS AND RESULTS Maslinic acid was orally administered at 1, 2, and 5 mg/kg to male Sprague-Dawley for 2 days. At 24 h after the last administration, the content of the duodenum and jejunum, ileum, cecum, and colon was collected and extracted with methanol 80% prior to LC-APCI-MS analysis. The developed method was validated providing suitable sensitivity (LOQ of 5 nM), good recovery (97.8 ± 3.6%), linear correlation, and appropriate precision (