Determination of metoprolol in rabbit blood using capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence detection

This work described a sensitive method for determination of metoprolol in rabbit plasma. The method involved purification by ultrafiltration, derivatization with fluorescein isothiocyanate, determination by capillary electrophoresis (CE) coupled with laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detector. Other components in plasma including a variety of amino acids and proteins did not interfere with the determination of metoprolol in experimental condition. The assay had a wide range (2.0–500 ng/mL) of linearity and a detection limit of 0.8 ng/mL. The intra- and inter-day precisions were satisfactory with relative standard deviation (RSD) less than 10.0% and accuracy within 10.0%. This method was successfully applied to pharmacokinetic study of metoprolol in rabbit blood.