In vivo metabolic pathway of naringenin in rats / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Objective: To study the in vivo metabolic pathway of naringenin in rats, which would provide reference for its further research and development. Methods: A liquid chromatography with hybrid quadruple-linear ion trap mass spectrometer (LC-QTRAP-MS) was applied to identify the metabolites of naringenin in bile, urine, feces and plasma after ig administration to rats. The fragmentation patterns of naringenin were also used to analyze possible metabolic pathways in the study. Results: There were altogether 14 metabolites detected. The possible metabolic pathways of naringenin were oxidation, methylation, glucuronidation and sulfation in rats. Conclusion: In vivo metabolism studies show that naringenin undergoes extensive metabolism, including phase I and phase II biotransformation, and the phase II glucuronide and sulfate conjugates are primary metabolites. The relative quantitative amounts of metabolites excreted from urine are almost equivalent to that of the parent naringenin, while a large majority of metabolites are conjugated ones in bile, which are subsequently transformed to the parent in intestinal tract and appeared in feces.