Quantitative determination of mitiglinide in human plasma by ultra-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

A selective, rapid and sensitive ultra-performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC/MS/MS) method was developed for the quantitative determination of mitiglinide in human plasma. With nateglinide as internal standard, sample pretreatment involved a one-step extraction with diethyl ether of 0.2 mL plasma. The separation was performed on an ACQUITY UPLC™ BEH C18 column (50 mm × 2.1 mm, i.d., 1.7 μm) with the mobile phase consisting of methanol and 10 mmol/L ammonium acetate (65:35, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.25 mL/min. The detection was carried out by means of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry in positive ion mode with multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). Linear calibration curves were obtained in the concentration range of 1.080–5400 ng/mL, with a lower limit of quantification of 1.080 ng/mL. The intra- and inter-day precision (RSD) values were below 15% and accuracy (RE) was from −3.5% to 7.3% at all QC levels. The method was fully validated and successfully applied to a clinical pharmacokinetic study of mitiglinide in 10 healthy volunteers following oral administration.