Quantitation of kudinoside A, kudinoside D and kudinoside F in human plasma using a high performance liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometric method

• A sensitive and selective HPLC–MS/MS method for the determination of kudinoside A, kudinoside D and kudinoside F in human plasma has been firstly developed.
• The simple protein precipitation extraction procedure and short run time can allow a large number of samples to be analyzed.
• This method is suitable for the analysis of pharmacokinetic, bioavailability or bioequivalence studies of kudinoside A, kudinoside D and kudinoside F.

A sensitive and selective high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometric (HPLC–MS/MS) method for the simultaneous determination of kudinoside A, kudinoside D and kudinoside F in human plasma has been firstly developed. Samples were prepared after protein precipitation and analyzed on a C18 column interfaced with a triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer. Negative electrospray ionization was employed as the ionization source. The mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile–water (35:65) at the flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. The analytes and internal standard Ginsenoside Rb1 were both detected by use of multiple reaction monitoring mode. The method was linear in the concentration range of 2.5–1000.0 ng/mL. The lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) was 2.5 ng/mL. The intra-and inter-day relative standard deviation across three validation runs over the entire concentration range was less than 12.4%. The accuracy determined at three concentrations was within ±4.9% in terms of relative error. The total run time was 7.0 min. This assay offers advantages in terms of expediency, and suitability for the analysis of kudinoside A, kudinoside D and kudinoside F in various biological fluids.