Determination and pharmacokinetic study of four lignans in rat plasma after oral administration of an extract of Valeriana amurensis by ultra‐high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry

A selective and sensitive ultra-high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry method was developed and validated for the determination and pharmacokinetic study of (+)-8-hydroxypinoresinol-4'-O-β -D-glucopyranoside, prinsepiol-4-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, (+)-pinoresinol-4,4'-di-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, and (-)-massoniresinol 3α-O-β-D-glucopyranoside in rat plasma after the oral administration of a Valeriana amurensis extract. The analytes and ethyl 4-hydroxybenzoate (internal standard) were separated on a Waters ACQUITY UPLC HSS T3 chromatographic column. The detection was performed on a triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer in multiple reaction monitoring mode using an electrospray ionization source operating in negative ionization mode. The linear ranges (ng/mL) of the standard curves were 0.39-154.00, 0.62-244.70, 0.50-198.60, and 0.34-134.50 for (+)-8-hydroxypinoresinol-4'-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, prinsepiol-4-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, (+)-pinoresinol-4,4'-di-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, and (-)-massoniresinol 3α-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, respectively. The inter- and intra-day precisions were less than 11.0%, the accuracies were between -5.9 and 7.7%, and the extraction recoveries of the four analytes were > 81.2% from rat plasma. The method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of the four analytes after oral administration of a Valeriana amurensis extract to rats. The developed method has the potential for pharmacokinetic analysis and to provide additional information in the clinical application of Valeriana amurensis.