ABSTRACT
Objective To develop a HPLC-MS/MS method for the determination of aconitine and study thein vitro metabolic stability of aconitine in dog tissue homogenates.Methods The chromatographic separation was performed on a C18 column.The mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile and water with 0.2％ formic acid and 5 mmol/L ammonium acetate.A triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer equipped with an electrospray ionization interface source was used for the quantitative determination in the positive selective reaction monitor mode.Aconitine was incubated with dog tissue homogenates and samples were withdrawn at different time points and precipitated by acetonitrile with internal standards citalopram.Results Aconitine showed good linear relationship over the range from 5 to 500 ng/ml.The recoveries of aconitine were between 85.73％ and 92.12％ at three QC concentration levels.The intra- and inter-day precisions were 5.32％ - 8.95％ and 5.45％ - 8.86％,respectively.After incubation,about 20％ of aconitine were cleared in the liver and small intestine,and t1/2 were 460.6 and 521.3 min,respectively.But none was metabolized in the stomach and kidney.Conclusion These results demonstrated that aconitine was mainly metabolized in the liver and small intestine at a slow rate.