Pharmacokinetics screening for multi-components absorbed in the rat plasma after oral administration of traditional Chinese medicine Flos Lonicerae Japonicae-Fructus Forsythiae herb couple by sequential negative and positive ionization ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography/tandem triple quadrupole mass spectrometric detection.

The current study aims to investigate the pharmacokinetics of multi-components (caffeic acid, quinic acid, genistein, luteolin, quercetin, neochlorogenic acid, chlorogenic acid, cryptochlorogenic acid, arctigenin, genistin, luteoloside, astragalin, hyperoside, isoquercitrin, 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 3,4-dicaffeoylquinic acid, rutin, loganin, pinoresinol-β-d-glucoside, phillyrin, isoforsythoside, forsythoside A and forsythoside B) following oral administration of Flos Lonicerae Japonicae-Fructus Forsythiae herb couple in rats. A rapid and sensitive UPLC-ESI-MS/MS with sequential positive and negative ionization modes was developed to determine the 23 absorbed ingredients using one sample preparation combined with three chromatographic conditions in rat plasma. After mixing with internal standard (IS) (tinidazole and chloramphenicol), samples were pretreated by liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) with n-butyl alcohol/ethyl acetate (1:1, v/v). The separations for pinoresinol-β-d-glucoside, phillyrin, isoforsythoside, forsythoside A and forsythoside B were performed on an ACQUITY UPLC BEH C18 column (100mm×2.1mm, 1.7μm) with acetonitrile/methanol (4:1, v/v)-water as mobile phase. For analyzing quinic acid, an ACQUITY UPLC HSS T3 column (100mm×2.1mm, 1.8μm) was applied with acetonitrile/methanol (4:1, v/v)-0.01% formic acid as mobile phase after dilution up to 25-fold. The same column was applied to the other components with acetonitrile/methanol (4:1, v/v)-0.4% formic acid as mobile phase. The method validation results demonstrated that the proposed method was sensitive, specific and reliable, which was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic study of the multi-components after oral administration of Flos Lonicerae Japonicae-Fructus Forsythiae herb couple.