Determination of blood concentrations of main active compounds in Zi-Cao-Cheng-Qi decoction and their total plasma protein binding rates based on hollow fiber liquid phase microextraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography

Oil-in-salt hollow fiber liquid phase microextraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV) was developed for determination of the blood concentrations of the main active compounds, hesperidin, honokiol, shikonin, magnolol, emodin and β,β'-dimethylacrylshikonin, after oral administration of Zi-Cao-Cheng-Qi decoction (ZCCQD) and their total plasma protein binding rates. In the procedure, a hollow fiber segment was immersed in organic solvent to fill the solvent in the fiber lumen and wall pore, and then the fiber was immersed into sodium chloride solution to cover a thin salt membrane on the fiber wall pore filling organic solvent. Various factors affecting the procedure, such as extraction solvent, sample phase pH, stirring rate, extraction time, NaCl concentration and fiber immersion time in the NaCl solution, were optimized. Under the optimum conditions, good linearities (r2 ≥ 0.9905), low limits of detection (0.7-2.5 ng/mL) or quantitation (1.2-12 ng/mL), satisfactory precision (2.6%-12.8%) and accuracy (81.0%-114.2%) of this method, were observed. The results showed that, after oral administration of a 25 g/kg dose, (1) the blood concentrations (at 0.5 h) of hesperidin, honokiol, shikonin, magnolol, emodin and β,β'-dimethylacrylshikonin were 0.45, 0.40, 0.48, 0.74, 0.11 and 1.11 μg/mL, respectively; (2) the total plasma protein binding rates of the six active compounds were 42.0% (hesperidin), 71.8% (honokiol), 64.6% (shikonin), 77.7% (magnolol), 75.3% (emodin) and 75.7% (β,β'-dimethylacrylshikonin), respectively. The proposed procedure coupled with HPLC shows obvious advantages, such as low solvent consumption, simple operation, high sensitivity and strong purifying and can be used for the determination of both the blood concentrations and total plasma protein binding rates of active compounds in traditional Chinese medicine.