Comparatively evaluating the pharmacokinetic of fifteen constituents in normal and blood deficiency rats after oral administration of Xin-Sheng-Hua Granule by UPLC-MS/MS

Xin-Sheng-Hua Granule (XSHG), a famous traditional Chinese medicine prescription, are clinically applied for the treatment of postpartum disease through nourishing blood and promoting blood circulation. In this investigation, a multi-constituents (trigonelline, stachydrine hydrochloride, hydroxysafflor yellow A, chlorogenic acid, amygdalin, leonurine, liquiritin, ferulic acid, senkyunolide I, senkyunolide H, glycyrrhizic acid, senkyunolide A, ligustilide, butylidenephthalide and glycyrrhetinic acid) pharmacokinetic study of XSHG was conducted for the first time. These fifteen constituents in both normal and blood deficiency rat plasma were monitored by using the established and validated ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with a triple quadrupole electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-TQ-MS/MS) method. The samples were prepared through removing protein from plasma with three volumes of methanol. Sufficient separation of target constituents and internal standards (chloramphenicol and clarithromycin) was obtained on a Thermo Scientific Hypersil GOLD column (100 mm × 3 mm, 1.9 μm) within a 20 min gradient elution (0.1% formic acid aqueous - acetonitrile). Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode was applied to monitor target analytes in both positive and negative electrospray ionization. For the fifteen selected target analytes, this method was fully validated with excellent linearity (r ≥ 0.9925), satisfactory intra- and inter-day precisions (RSD ≤ 11.87%), as well as good accuracies (RE, between −12.84 and 11.69). And the stabilities, matrix effects and extraction recoveries of the rat plasma samples were also within acceptable limits (RSD < 15%). Compared to normal group, the pharmacokinetics of major active constituents (except liquiritin and glycyrrhetinic acid) had significant differences (P < 0.05) in the model rats, indicated that several metabolite enzymes activities could be altered at disease condition.