Comparative pharmacokinetics of nine major bioactive components in normal and ulcerative colitis rats after oral administration of Lizhong decoction extracts by UPLC–TQ–MS/MS

Abstract

Lizhong decoction (LZD), a classic formula, has been used to treat ulcerative colitis (UC) for thousands of years in clinical practice. However, the pharmacokinetic characteristics of its major bioactive components in rats under different physiological and pathological states are not clear. Thus, in this study, a rapid and sensitive analytical method, ultra‐performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (UPLC–MS/MS) method, was developed and applied to simultaneously determine glycyrrhizic acid, liquiritin, isoliquiritin, glycyrrhizin, isoliquiritigenin, 6‐gingerol, ginsenoside Rg1, ginsenoside Rb1 and ginsenoside Re in normal and UC rats after oral administration of LZD extract. A Waters BEH C18 UPLC column was used for chromatographic separation, while acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid were selected as mobile phase. The linearity of nine analytes was >0.9920. Inter‐ and intra‐day accuracy was ≤ 11.4% and precision was from 1.1 to 12.7%. Additionally, stable and suitable extraction recoveries were also obtained. The established method was validated and found to be specific, accurate and precise for nine analytes. Furthermore, it was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic investigation of nine major components after oral administration of LZD extracts to normal and model rats, respectively. The results showed that the pharmacokinetic parameters (Cmax, Tmax, AUC0–t, AUC0–∞) in the plasma of UC rats were significantly different from those of normal rats, which could provide a reference for the clinical application of LZD.

Comparison of pharmacokinetic profiles of seven major bioactive components in normal and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) rats after oral administration of Ling-Gui-Zhu-Gan decoction by UPLC-MS/MS

“…In the NAFLD rats, the clearance rate of glycyrrhizic acid, glycyrrhetinic acid, dehydrotumulosic acid, isoliquiritin, liquiritin, atractylenolide III, and cinnamic acid was significantly higher than that of the normal group. There was also a bimodal phenomenon between glycyrrhetinic acid and isoliquiritin ( Xu et al, 2018 ; Shen et al, 2019 ), which might have been caused by gastric emptying separation, enterohepatic circulation, and reabsorption ( Deng et al, 2008 ; Zhu et al, 2010 ). Further research should be carried out to determine the specific mechanism.…”

Chinese herbal medicines for treating ulcerative colitis via regulating gut microbiota-intestinal immunity axis

“…LZD consists of four herbs such as Zingiberis Rhizoma (Ganjiang in Chinese) , Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma (Renshen in Chinese) , Atractylodis Macrocephalae Rhizoma (Baizhu in Chinese) , and Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma (Gancao in Chinese) ( Shen, Cui, Jiang, Qian, & Duan, 2019 ), which is a traditional herbal formula widely used for gastrointestinal diseases due to deficiency-cold of the spleen and stomach in China for a long history. LZD treatment [1.365, 4.095 and 12.285 g/(kg·d) for 14 d] showed a favorable regulative effect on gut microbiota diversity in UC mice induced by DSS ( Zou et al, 2020 ).…”

Comparative pharmacokinetics of the main active components in normal and ulcerative colitis rats after oral administration of Zingiberis Rhizoma–Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma herb pair and its single herb extracts by LC–MS/MS

“…Rats were allowed to acclimatize to the animal facility for 7 days before experimental procedures. The UC rat model was induced by 2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS)/ethanol enema according to the protocol reported previously [23,24]. Briefly, all rats were fasted for 24 h with free access to drinking water and then were anesthetized using sodium pentobarbital (50 mg/kg, ip).…”

“…Pharmacokinetics of four analytes in ulcerative colitis rat plasma A large number of studies have shown that the pharmacokinetic process of drugs might be changed in the pathological state [23,30]. Thus, it was necessary to investigate pharmacokinetic characteristics of four components in UC rat plasma after oral administration of ZR, GR, and ZG extracts.…”