Aim: To develop a sensitive and specific HPLC method for the determination of crocin-1 in rabbit plasma, and study the pharmacokinetics in rabbit.
Methods: After i.v. administration of crocin-1 in rabbit, the sample could be well purified after precipitation of protein with methanol. Waters spherisorb C18 column (250 mm x 4.6 mm ID, 5 microm) was used and the mobile phase consisted of methanol-acetonitrile-1% aqueous acetic acid (15:10:50) at the flow rate of 1 mL x min(-1), and the UV detection wave length was 440 nm. The column temperature is 25 degrees C.
Results: The calibration curve was linear (r = 0.9997) in the range from 0.86 to 27.54 mg x L(-1) for crocin-1. The lowest detectable concentration of crocin-1 was 0.42 mg x L(-1). After given i.v. crocin-1 in rabbit, the concentration-time curves of crocin-1 was shown to fit two-compartment open model.
Conclusion: This method is proved to be rapid, precise and reliable enough to be applied to the pharmacokinetics studies of crocin-1 in rabbit.