Determination and pharmacokinetic study of methyl nonyl ketone in rat plasma by GC-MS.

A rapid and sensitive method for determination of methyl nonyl ketone in rat plasma was developed based on GC–MS. The analyte and internal standard, propyl p-hydroxybenaoate, were extracted from plasma with methyl tert-butyl ether and then separated by an HP-5MS capillary analytical column (30 m × 0.25 mm, 0.25 µm) and determined by a quadrupole mass spectrometer detector operated under EI ionization and selected ion monitoring mode. Excellent linearity was found to be from 5.0 to 1,000 ng mL−1 with a lower limit of quantitation of 5.0 ng mL−1. The accuracy was between 96.0 and 106.3%, and the intra- and inter-day precision and accuracy values were found to be within the assay variability criteria limits according to the FDA guidelines. The developed method was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic study of methyl nonyl ketone, a typical component in the traditional Chinese medicine Houttuynia cordata injection, in rats after a single oral dose of 100 mg kg−1 and peritoneal injection dose of 5 mg kg−1, respectively.