Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry for the determination of jaceosidin in rat plasma

Jaceosidin (4′,5,7-trihydroxy-3′,6-dimethoxyflavone), isolated from Artemisia species as well as Eupatorium species, has antiallergic, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity. A rapid, sensitive and selective liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric (LC/MS/MS) method for the quantification of jaceosidin in rat plasma was developed to characterize the pharmacokinetics of jaceosidin. Jaceosidin and the internal standard, linezolid, were extracted from rat plasma with ethyl acetate at acidic pH and analyzed on a Luna phenyl-hexyl column using the mixture of acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid (45:55, v/v) as a mobile phase. The analytes were determined using an electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry in the multiple-reaction-monitoring mode. The calibration curve was linear (r2 = 0.9973) over the concentration range of 2.00-500 ng/ml. The lower limit of quantification for jaceosidin was 2.0 ng/ml using 50 μl of plasma sample. The coefficients of variation of intra- and inter-assay at four QC levels were 2.4-9.6% and the relative errors were −9.1 to 10.0%. The matrix effects for jaceosidin and linezolid were practically absent. The recoveries of jaceosidin and linezolid were 87.0 and 87.7%, respectively. This method was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic study of jaceosidin in rats.