Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometric Determination of Geniposide in Rat Plasma and its Pharmacokinetic Application

Geniposide is a biologically active ingredient of gardenia fruit. A liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric method was developed and validated for the determination of geniposide in rat plasma. The plasma samples were pretreated by solid-phase extraction and introduced into a BDS Hypersil C-18 column (50 x 2.1 mm, 5 mu m) for chromatographic separation. The mobile phase consisted of 0.1% formic acid and 0.1% formic acid in acetonitrile, and gradient elution was performed at a flow rate of 0.25 mL/min. For mass spectrometric detection, multiple reaction monitoring was performed via an electrospray ionization source in positive mode. The calibration curve for geniposide was linear (r(2) = 0.997) in the concentration range of 0.005-1 mu g/mL. The intra- and inter-day accuracies and precisions fulfilled the required criteria ( 15%). The developed method was subsequently used for pharmacokinetic analysis of geniposide after oral administration to rats at a dose of 50 mg/kg. The mean maximum plasma concentration of geniposide was 0.68 +/- 0.29 mu g/mL at 0.44 +/- 0.13 h, and the mean area under the plasma concentration versus time curve was 1.46 mu g.h/mL.This research was supported by a grant (12182KFDA652) from Korea Food & Drug Administration in 2013