High-performance liquid chromatography method for the determination of xanthone in rat & its application in pharmacokinetic studies

Xanthone is one of the major bioactive secondary metabolites in Garcinia mangostana. A simple reversed-phase high performance liquid (RP-HPLC) which equipped with photodiode array detector has been developed to analyze xanthone in rat plasma. The rat plasma was treated with deproteining agent (DA) consists of acetonitrile: propanol (1:1), in the ratio of 2:1 (DA: samples). The mobile phase comprises a mixture of (A) acetonitrile containing 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid and (B) water containing 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid. The eluting conditions were performed by gradient elution: isocratic at 30% A (0–10 min) and isocratic at 75% A (10–12min). The flow rate was 0.6 ml/min. The chromatographic separation was carried out using a C18 (150 mm × 4.6 mm i. d. column) with the detector operating at 254nm. The described method was linear over a range of 0.39–50 μg/ml with mean correlation coefficient of 0.997. The developed method was conducted to determine the pharmacokinetic profiles of xanthone in rat plasma after its intravenous and oral administration. Until now, most studies were based on the pharmacological activities of xanthone using in vitro assays. There is still limitation in the in vivo studies including absorption, bioavailability, disposition and metabolism of xanthone.