WJ-38 is an aldose reductase inhibitor that is being developed for the treatment of diabetic complications. The present paper describes a sensitive and specific liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for the determination of WJ-38 in rat plasma. Partial denaturation of plasma proteins with methanol followed by liquid-liquid extraction using ethyl acetate was used to extract strongly protein-bound WJ-38 from rat plasma. Chromatographic separation was performed on an Inertsil ODS-3 column with an isocratic mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile, water and formic acid (75:25:0.125, v/v/v). Mass spectrometric detection was achieved by a triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer equipped with an ESI interface operating in positive ionization mode. Quantitation was performed using selected reaction monitoring of precursor-product ion transitions at m/z 392→246 for WJ-38 and m/z 446→321 for glipizide (internal standard). A linear calibration curve was obtained over the concentration range of 10.0-10,000 ng/mL for WJ-38 in rat plasma. The intra- and inter-day precisions were less than 13.6% and the accuracy was within ± 5.3%. The extraction recovery of WJ-38 from rat plasma was over 66.0%. The validated method has been successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study in rats after intragastrical administration of WJ-38.
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