| Summary: | A sensitive and efficient liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was developed for the simultaneous determination of gentiopicroside, geniposide, baicalin, and swertiamarin in rat plasma. To avoid the stress caused by restraint or anesthesia, a freely moving rat model was used to investigate the pharmacokinetics of herbal medicine after the administration of a traditional Chinese herbal prescription of Long-Dan-Xie-Gan-Tang (10 g/kg, p.o.). Analytes were separated by a C18 column with a gradient system of methanol–water containing 1 mM ammonium acetate with 0.1% formic acid. The linear ranges were 10–500 ng/mL for gentiopicroside, geniposide, and baicalin, and 5–250 ng/mL for swertiamarin in biological samples. The intra- and inter-day precision (relative standard deviation) ranged from 0.9% to 11.4% and 0.3% to 14.4%, respectively. The accuracy (relative error) was from −6.3% to 10.1% at all quality control levels. The analytical system provided adequate matrix effect and recovery with good precision and accuracy. The pharmacokinetic data demonstrated that the area under concentration-time curve (AUC) values of gentiopicroside, geniposide, baicalin, and swertiamarin were 1417 ± 83.8, 302 ± 25.8, 753 ± 86.2, and 2.5 ± 0.1 min µg/mL. The pharmacokinetic profiles provide constructive information for the dosage regimen of herbal medicine and also contribute to elucidate the absorption mechanism in herbal applications and pharmacological experiments.
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