Simultaneous quantitation of glycyrrhetic acid and puerarin in plasma by UFLC-MS/MS, and application in a pharmacokinetics study in healthy and alcoholic liver injury rats.

A rapid, sensitive, and accurate ultra flow liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UFLC-MS/MS ) method was developed and validated for simultaneous quantitation of glycyrrhetic acid and puerarin in plasma derived from healthy and alcoholic liver injury rats. Plasma samples from healthy and model rats were deproteinated with methanol using liquiritin as an internal standard. Chromatography separation was performed by a Waters BEH (ethylene-bridged hybrid) C-18 column (2.1 x 50 mm; 1.7 mu m) using a gradient elution from acetonitrile and water (containing 0.1% formic acid) and at a flow rate of 0.4 mL/min. Quantitation was performed on a Triple Quad 4500 tandem mass spectrometer coupled with an electrospray ionization source in negative multiple reaction monitoring mode. Specificity, carryover, dilution integrity, recovery, linearity, precision and accuracy, matrix effect, and stability were within acceptable limits. The newly established method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetics study to investigate glycyrrhetic acid and puerarin in healthy and alcoholic liver injury rats.