Application of a sensitive liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry method to a pharmacokinetic study of nerolidol in rat plasma

Abstract

Nerolidol is a dominant volatile compound isolated from Oplopanax horridus. A liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) method was used to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of nerolidol in rats. A series of extraction and concentration methods were optimized for the extraction efficiency of biosamples. Chromatographic separation was performed on a reverse LC column within a total run time of 14.5 min. This method was linear over 10–10 000 ng mL⁻¹ and the limit of quantification for nerolidol was 10 ng mL⁻¹, with both inter-day and intra-day (CV) precision < 8% and accuracy (RE) ranging from −6% to 6%. RE for nerolidol nerolidol was lower than 11% after 4 h and 16% after 27 h freeze–thaw cycles, indicating the samples were stable in the analysis conditions.