Simultaneous determination of neoeriocitrin and naringin in rat plasma after oral administration of a Chinese compound formulation by UPLC-MS-MS.

A sensitive, specific method has been developed for simultaneous determination of neoeriocitrin and naringin in rat plasma using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. With hesperidin as the internal standard, plasma samples were prepared by protein precipitation with methanol. Analysis was carried out on an ACQUITY UPLC BEH C(18) column using acetonitrile-water (20:80, v/v) as the mobile phase. Detection was performed by means of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry in negative ion mode with multiple reaction monitoring. Linear calibration curves of neoeriocitrin and naringin were obtained over the concentration ranges of 15.0-960 ng/mL and 12.0-1200 ng/mL, respectively. The intra- and inter-day precisions were within 9.7% and 7.6% for neoeriocitrin and 7.8% and 12.9% for naringin. The accuracy was from -4.3% to 0.43% for neoeriocitrin and from -3.8% to 3.0% for naringin. The validated method was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic study of neoeriocitrin and naringin in rats after oral administration of a Chinese compound formulation, gushudan.