Simultaneous determination of ten bioactive constituents of Sanjie Zhentong Capsule in rat plasma by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry and its application to a pharmacokinetic study

•Ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) was explored for the simultaneous determination of ten bioactive constituents of Sanjie Zhentong Capsule (SZC), for the first time, in biological matrices.•In this study, we firstly reported the pharmacokinetic characteristics of pterostilbene and 7,4'-dihydroxyflavone in rat plasma after oral administration of SZC.•A specific and rapid quantitative LC-MS/MS method for the determination of ten bioactive constituents of SZC was developed, and applied to a pharmacokinetic application.

Sanjie Zhentong capsule, a well-known traditional Chinese medicine prescription, are used for the treatment of endometriosis-related diseases. In this study, a simple, rapid and sensitive ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) method was developed for the simultaneous determination of ten bioactive constituents, including peimine, peiminine, peimisine, loureirin A, loureirin B, 7,4′-dihydroxyflavone, pterostilbene, ginsenoside Rg1, ginsenoside Rb1, and notoginsenoside R1 in rat plasma after oral administration of Sanjie Zhentong capsule. The sample preparations for protein removal was accomplished using a simple methanol precipitation method. The analytes were completely separated from the endogenous compounds on an Agilent Poroshell 120 SB-C18 column (4.6 mm × 150 mm, 2.7 μm) using an isocratic elution with methanol − 0.1% formic acid aqueous (4/1, v/v) as a mobile phase. The single-run analysis time was as short as 14.0 min. The inter-day and intra-day precision of the quality control samples exhibited relative standard deviations (RSD) <9.5% and the accuracy values ranged from −8.6% to 15.0%. The lower limits of quantification (LLOQ) were 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 5, 10, 10 and 20 ng/mL for peimine, peiminine, peimisine, loureirin A, loureirin B, 7,4′-dihydroxyflavone, pterostilbene, ginsenoside Rg1, ginsenoside Rb1, notoginsenoside R1, respectively. The analytical method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of the multi-components after oral administration of Sanjie Zhentong Capsule in rats.