Liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) based bioavailability determination of the major classes of phytochemicals

- LC-MS/MS sensitivity and specificity should be exploited in phytochemical research.
- Knowledge on LC-MS/MS quantification of phytochemicals in plasma is accumulated.
- Knowledge on bioavailability of a group of phytochemicals over the last five years is reported.

Natural products derived from plants have served as an inexhausted source for drug discovery and drug development. They have been evolutionary amplified with drug-like properties and have already illustrated immense therapeutic potential over an array of different diseases. However, their incorporation in the drug discovery pipeline has been diminished the last two decades. This was probably due to barriers related to their inherent difficulties to be integrated in high-throughput screening assays as also their largely unexplored bioavailability. Analytical procedures have come into the spotlight, a result of the continuous development of the instrumentation's capabilities as far as detection and separation is concerned. Integral part of this technological evolution is LC-MS instrumentation and its extended use for the determination of various compounds. The fact that it provides extra sensitivity, specificity and good separation in complex samples, makes LC-MS/MS the ultimate tool in the determination of many types of chemical compounds, such as phytochemicals. Herein, we focus on the achievements of the last five years in quantitative analysis of the major classes of phytochemicals (flavonoids, alkaloids, terpenes, glycosides and saponins) in plasma, through LC-MS/MS, as also their bioavailability.