Determination of Puerarin in Rat Plasma by HPLC with Fluorescence Detection and its Application to Pharmacokinetic Studies

SUMMARY. A simple, rapid, sensitive and selective method of high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection was developed for determination of puerarin in rat plasma. Chromatography was carried out on a reversed-phase Hypersil ODS column at 30 °C using a mobile phase consisting of methanol - 50 mM NH4OAc in water (23:77, v/v) with a flow rate of 1 mL/min. The excitation wavelength and emission wavelength were 250nm and 480nm, respectively, PMT-gain was set at 11. The method was demonstrated to be selective and sensitive, and a good linear response was observed over a range of 0.16–120.00 μg/mL in rat plasma. The validated method was successfully applied to the characterization of the pharmacokinetics of puerarin in rat plasma after intravenous administration to rats. The main phar