The drug interaction potential of berberine hydrochloride when co-administered with simvastatin, fenofibrate, gemfibrozil, metformin, glimepiride, nateglinide, pioglitazone and sitagliptin in beagles

Berberine (BBR) hydrochloride is a traditional Chinese medicine with unique hypoglycemic and lipid-lowering effects discovered in recent years. The combination of BBR with other hypoglycemic drugs and lipid-lowering drugs could become a promising treatment strategy. With the aim of evaluating the potential drug-drug interaction (DDI) based on the pharmacokinetics between BBR and simvastatin, fenofibrate, gemfibrozil, metformin, glimepiride, nateglinide, pioglitazone and sitagliptin in beagles, an UPLC-MS/MS method has been developed and validated. The analytes and internal standards were extracted from plasma samples using a magnetic solid phase extraction technique, and then separated by a Luna (R) Omega C-18 column (20.0 x 2.0 mm, 1.6 mu m) with water containing 3 mM ammonium and 0.1% formic acid and acetonitrile containing 3 mM ammonium and 0.1% formic acid as the mobile phase. Validation of the UPLC-MS/MS method was carried out following the criteria of the Chinese Pharmacopeia, mainly including specificity, carryover, calibration curve, crosstalk, precision, accuracy, dilution integrity, matrix effect, recovery and stability. The results showed that all the criteria of the method validation met the Chinese Pharmacopoeia guidelines, and the proposed UPLC-MS/MS method was proven to be sensitive, simple and specific to determine all the analytes in the beagles' plasma samples simultaneously. Meanwhile, the potential DDI between BBR and simvastatin, fenofibrate, gemfibrozil, metformin, glimepiride, nateglinide, pioglitazone and sitagliptin was confirmed in this paper, especially for simvastatin, fenofibrate, gemfibrozil and glimepiride. (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University.