Simultaneous Determination of Five Water-Soluble Components of Danshen in Rabbit Plasma and Its Application to Pharmacokinetics

A sensitive and specific high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-UV method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of five water-soluble components, Danshensu (DSS), protocatechuic acid (PAC), protocatechuic aldehyde (PAL), salvianolic acid B (SAB) and salvianolic acid A (SAA) of Danshen Injection in rabbits. After liquid-liquid extraction with ethyl acetate, plasma sample was eluted from CAP CELL PAK C18 column with a gradient mobile phase composed of component A: water- dimethylformamide-acetic acid (94:4:2) and B: methanol- dimethyl formamide-acetic acid (94:4:2). The detection wavelength was set at 281 nm and flow rate was 1.0 mL/lmin. The method described in the present paper showed good linearity over a relative wide range and recoveries of 70.3-94.7%, as well as high intra- and inter-day precisions (CV <15%). The limit of detection for DSS , PAC, PAL, SAB and SAA in plasma were 0.1, 0.05, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2 mug/mL, respectively. It could be concluded that this method is sensitive, specific, reproducible and completely meet requirements for pharmacokinetic study of five water-soluble components after intravenous administration of Danshen Injection.