Simultaneous quantitative determination of sanguinarine, chelerythrine, dihydrosanguinarine and dihydrochelerythrine in chicken by HPLC–MS/MS method and its applications to drug residue and pharmacokinetic study

• A HPLC–MS/MS method was developed for determination of four alkaloids in chick.
• The developed method was validated as per USFDA bioanalytical guideline.
• First paper on drug residue determination of sanguinarine in chick.

A specific and reliable HPLC–MS/MS method was developed and validated for simultaneously determination of sanguinarine, chelerythrine and their metabolites (dihydrosanguinarine and dihydrochelerythrine) in chicken tissue for the first time. This is important because these compounds are related to the use of a naturally occurring and novel feed additive with many benefits, but the levels of these compounds must be strictly controlled. The compounds were extracted by acetonitrile and 1% HCl–methanol solution successively and then separated on a C18 column. A triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer equipped with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source was used for detection. Quantification was performed using multiple reaction monitoring with positive mode. The method was validated in terms of specificity, linearity, precision, accuracy and stability. The calibration curves were linear over the concentration range of 0.5–100.0 ng/g for sanguinarine, 0.5–100.0 ng/g for chelerythrine, 0.2–100.0 ng/g for dihydrosanguinarine and 0.1–100 ng/g for dihydrochelerythrine, respectively. All of the recovery rates of the four analytes were over 85%. The RSD of intra-day and inter-day precision was less than 5.0%, and the relative error was all within 12.0%. This validated method has been successfully applied to assess the drug residue and metabolite residue characteristics of sanguinarine and chelerythrine in chicken tissue after oral administration of the extracts of Macleaya cordata (Willd.) R. Br, and to investigate the pharmacokinetic parameters of sanguinarine and dihydrosanguinarine in chicken plasma.