Simultaneous determination of puerarin and its active metabolite in human plasma by UPLC-MS/MS: Application to a pharmacokinetic study

A rapid, selective and sensitive ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC)-tandem mass spectrometry method about the simultaneous determination of puerarin and its major active metabolite, daidzein, in human plasma was developed and validated in order to investigate the pharmacokinetics (PKs) of Gegen after the usual oral dose administration to human. Chromatography was carried out on a Kinetex C18 column (2.1 mm × 50 mm, 1.7 μm) using 0.05% acetic acid in water and 0.05% acetic acid in methanol as mobile phase with a gradient elution. Liquid-liquid extraction with ethyl acetate in acidic condition could remove the interference and minimize the matrix effect of human plasma. The lower limit of quantification in human plasma was 0.2 ng/mL for both of compounds, puerarin and daidzein. The calibration curves for puerarin and daidzein in human plasma were linear over all the concentration range of 0.2-100 ng/mL with correlation coefficients greater than 0.998. This assay procedure was successfully applied to the PKs of puerarin and daidzein, after the usual oral dose of Gegen extract powder (2.56 g, containing 9.984 mg puerarin) in human subjects.