Comparative pharmacokinetics of three marker compounds in mBHT and single-herb extract after oral administration to rats.

Modified Bo-Yang-Hwan-O-Tang (mBHT) is a decoction of 12 herbs traditionally used in the treatment of cerebral and cardiac stroke and vascular dementia. Paeoniflorin (PF), calycosin-7-O-ß-D-glycoside (CY), and salvianolic acid B (SB) are marker compounds for extracts of the herbs Paeoniae Radix, Astragali Radix, and Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix, respectively, and are used to assess the quality of mBHT. This study examined the pharmacokinetics of these three marker compounds following oral administration of each herb extract alone and in combination as mBHT in rats. The concentrations of the three compounds in rat plasma were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography, using a C18 column (2.1×150 mm, 5 µm) and mobile phases of methanol-water-formic acid (10:90:0.05, v/v) and methanol-water (90:10, v/v). The results indicated that the pharmacokinetic parameters of Paeoniae Radix extract group and mBHT group were very similar, while those of Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix extract group and mBHT group were significantly different (P<0.05, t-test). The T(max), AUC and T(1/2) of SB for Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix extract group were 54.7 min, 598.7 µg min/ml and 37.4 min, respectively. However, these values increased to 77.6 min, 915.9 µg min/ml and 53.7 min for mBHT group, supposing that excretion of SB could be more retarded when administered in mBHT than in Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix extract.

Determining the pharmacokinetics of psilocin in rat plasma using ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with a photodiode array detector after orally administering an extract of Gymnopilus spectabilis.

This study established ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with a photodiode array detector for determining psilocin and its pharmacokinetics in rat plasma after orally administering an extract of Gymnopilus spectabilis. The extract was separated on an ODS C18 column (2.3 µm, 100 mm × 2.1 mm I.D.) by gradient elution with (A) water containing 50mM AcONH(4) and (B) acetonitrile. The wavelength was set at 265 nm and the injection volume was 10 µL. Under these conditions, the calibration curve was linear over the concentration range 0.2-20 µg/mL with a correlation coefficient of r(2)=0.9992. The inter- and intraday precision levels were less than 7% and the accuracies (%) were within the range 92.0-102.5%. The method was sufficiently valid to be applied to a pharmacokinetics study of psilocin in rat plasma. The pharmacokinetic parameters of psilocin in rat plasma after the oral administration of a G. spectabilis extract were as follows: C(max), 0.43 ± 0.12 µg/mL; T(max), 90 ± 2.1 min; AUC(0→t), 1238.3 ± 96.4 (µg/mL) min; and T(1/2), 117.3 ± 40.3 min.

Multiple component quantitative analysis for the pattern recognition and quality evaluation of Kalopanacis Cortex using HPLC.

A quantitative and pattern recognition analyses were conducted for quality evaluation of Kalopanacis Cortex (KC) using HPLC. For quantitative analysis, four bioactive compounds, liriodendrin, pinoresinol O-ß-D-glucopyranoside, acanthoside B and kalopanaxin B, were determined. The analysis method was optimized and validated using ODS column with mobile phase of methanol and aqueous phosphoric acid. The validation gave acceptable linearities (r > 0.9995), recoveries (98.4% to 101.9%) and precisions (RSD < 2.20). The limit of detection of compounds ranged from 0.4 to 0.9 µg/mL. Among the four compounds, liriodendrin was recommended as a marker compound for the quality control of KC. The pattern analysis was successfully carried out by analyzing thirty two samples from four species, and the authentic KC samples were completely discriminated from other inauthentic species by linear discriminant analysis. The results indicated that the method was suitable for the quantitative analysis of liriodendrin and the quality evaluation of KC.