Development of a UFLC-MS/MS method for the simultaneous determination of seven tea catechins in rat plasma and its application to a pharmacokinetic study after administration of green tea extract

A rapid, sensitive and selective ultra-fast liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UFLC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for simultaneous determination of seven green tea catechins including catechin (C), (-)-epicatechin (EC), gallocatechin (GC), (-)-epigallocatechin (EGC), (-)-epicatechin-3-gallate (ECG), gallocatechin-3-gallate (GCG) and (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) in rat plasma. The plasma samples were firstly hydrolysed with the mixture of β-glucuronidase and sulfatase, which were then extracted by liquid-liquid extraction with ethyl acetate-isopropanol (1:1, v/v). The analytes were separated on a Venusil MP C18 column (Venusil, China) with a gradient elution at a flow rate of 0.4mL/min. The detection was performed in negative ionization and multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. All the calibration curves exhibited good linearity (r>0.9943) with intra- and inter-day precisions of less than 14.3% and the accuracy deviations ranging from -8.8% to 7.5%. The extraction recoveries of the analytes and ethyl gallate (internal standard) were all more than 72%. The validated method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of seven catechins in rat plasma after oral administration of the green tea extract at different doses of 0.4, 1.2 and 2.0g/kg.