Comparison of pharmacokinetic behavior of two iridoid glycosides in rat plasma after oral administration of crude Cornus officinals and its jiuzhipin by high performance liquid chromatography triple quadrupole mass spectrometry combined with multiple reactions monitoring mode

OBJECTIVE: The present study examined the pharmacokinetic profiles of two iridoid glycosides named morroniside and loganin in rat plasma after oral administration of crude and processed Cornus officinals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A rapid, selective and specific high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry with multiple reactions monitoring mode was developed to simultaneously investigate the pharmacokinetic profiles of morroniside and loganin in rat plasma after oral administration of crude C. officinals and its jiuzhipin. RESULTS: The morroniside and loganin in crude and processed C. officinals could be simultaneously determined within 7.4 min. Linear calibration curves were obtained over the concentration ranges of 45.45-4800 ng/mL for all the analytes. The intra-and inter-day precisions relative standard deviation was lesser than 2.84% and 4.12%, respectively. CONCLUSION: The pharmacokinetic parameters of two iridoid glucosides were also compared systematically between crude and processed C. officinals. This paper provides the theoretical proofs for further explaining the processing mechanism of Traditional Chinese Medicines.