Quantitation of bergenin in human plasma by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry

This paper reports the development and validation of an assay for quantitation of bergenin in human plasma using liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS). Bergenin and the internal standard (I.S.), 5-bromo-2,4(1H,3H)-pyrimidinedione (5-BrU), were separated by reversed phase HPLC and quantitated by MS/MS using electrospray ionization (ESI) and multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) in the negative ion mode. The most intense [M−H]− MRM transition of bergenin at m/z 326.9 → 312.3 was used for quantitation and the transition at m/z 188.9 → 42.2 was used to monitor 5-BrU. Stability issues with bergenin required the addition of ascorbic acid to plasma samples prior to storage and analysis within 10 days storage at −80 °C. The method was linear in the range 3–1000 ng/mL with intra- and inter-day precision of 3.94–5.96 and 1.62–8.31%, respectively, and accuracy <2.33%. The assay was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study in healthy volunteers after administration of a single 250 mg oral dose.