Pharmacokinetic UPLC–MS/MS studies on byakangelicol after oral and intravenous administration to rats

Byakangelicol is one of coumarins from Baizhi and has been shown to inhibit the release of PGE2 from human lung epithelial A549 cells in a dose-dependent manner. A sensitive ultra-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC–MS/MS) method was developed and full validated for the quantification of byakangelicol in rat plasma. The pharmacokinetics of byakangelicol after both intravenous (5 mg/kg) and oral (15 mg/kg) administrations were studied. Chromatographic separation was performed on an ultra-performance liquid chromatography ethylene bridged hybrid (UPLC BEH) C18 column with acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.4 mL/min; fargesin was used as the internal standard (IS). The following quantitative analysis of byakangelicol was utilized in the multiple reaction monitoring mode. The samples were extracted from rat plasma via protein precipitation using acetonitrile. In the concentration range of 1–2000 ng/mL, the method correlated linearity (r u003e 0.9...