Determination of atractylon in rat plasma by a GC-MS method and its application to a pharmacokinetic study

A sensitive and selective method based on gas chromatography hyphenated to mass spectrometry(GCMS) was developed and validated for the determination of atractylon in rat plasma.Plasma samples were processed by liquid-liquid extraction with ethyl acetate-n-hexane(1:1,v/v) using acetophenone as an internal standard(IS).Analytes were determined in selective ion monitoring(SIM) mode using target ions at m/z 108.1 for atractylon and m/z 105.1 for acetophenone.The calibration curve was linear over the concentration range of 10-1000 ng/mL with lower limit of quantification of 10 ng/mL The intra- and inter-day precision variations were not more than 10.4%and 9.6%,respectively,whilst accuracy values ranged from-6.5%to 4.9%.Extraction recovery of the assay was satisfactory.This method was successfully applied to quantification and pharmacokinetic study of atractylon in rat plasma after intragastric administration of Atractylodis extract.