Simultaneous Determination of Quercitrin, Afzelin, Amentoflavone, Hinokiflavone in Rat Plasma by UFLC–MS-MS and Its Application to the Pharmacokinetics of Platycladus orientalis Leaves Extract

Abstract Leaves of Platycladus orientalis have been used as blood cooling and homeostatic therapy for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine. Emerging evidences of modern pharmacology have proved flavonoids as the key elements responsible for the efficacies. However, there has been no report on pharmacokinetic study of the flavonoids from Platycladus orientalis leaves extract. In this study, a sensitive and rapid ultra-flow liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was established and validated for the simultaneous determination of amentoflavone, afzelin, hinokiflavone and quercitrin in rat plasma. The four flavonoids and luteolin (internal standard, IS) were recovered from rat plasma by methanol–ethyl acetate (v:v, 50:50). Chromatographic separation was performed on a C18 column with gradient elution. Our results showed that the recoveries from spiked control samples were more than 85% for all analytes and IS. The relative standard deviations of intra-day and inter-day precision were within 15% while the REs ranged from −6.6% to 8.0%. The validated method in this study was successfully applied to pharmacokinetic study in healthy rats after oral administration of P. orientalis leaves extract.