ABSTRACT
Model organism zebrafish was used to study metabolism of asperosaponin VI from Dipsacus asper Wall. ex Henry for the first time. Metabolic components of asperosaponin VI after exposing to zebrafish for 24 h were identified by high performance liquid chromatography--electrospray mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS), the separation was performed with a Zorbax C18 column using a binary gradient elution of 0.05% formic acetonitrile--0.05% formic acid water. The quasi-molecular ions of compounds in both negative and positive mode were observed for molecule mass information, and the potential structures were identified by attentive study on the deglycosylation metabolites and one hydroxylation metabolite of asperosaponin VI. The results were highly in consistent with metabolism of asperosaponin VI in rat. It can be concluded that zebrafish model can wonderfully imitate current metabolic model with advantages of small amount of lower cost, far less amount compound, higher efficiency and more simple, and can reflect integrated metabolism results of in vivo method. Zebrafish metabolic model may become a novel organism model for quick predication on metabolism of even mircoamount compound, which can enrich the available models greatly.