Validated HPLC method for quantitative determination of talinolol in rat plasma and application to a preclinical pharmacokinetic study.

Background: A simple HPLC-UV method with a high reproducibility and sensitivity for the determination of talinolol in rat plasma was developed in this study.

Method: After liquid-liquid extraction, the compounds were separated on a Vydac(®) C18 monomeric column (250 × 4.6 mm inner diameter × 5-µm particle size) using a mobile phase composed of acetonitrile and potassium dihydrogen phosphate buffer (34:66 v/v), delivered isocratically at a flow rate of 1.0 ml min(-1). Escitalopram was used as an internal standard. The chromatographic peak-area ratio, based on UV absorbency at 245 nm, was used for quantitative analysis.

Results: Calibration standards with concentrations over the range of 10-1000 ng ml(-1) were validated for routine sample analysis to support pharmacokinetic studies with talinolol in rats. The intra- and inter-day precision studies showed good reproducibility with coefficients of variation of less than 11.49%. The developed method is simpler and more sensitive than previously reported methods.

Discussion: The analytical sensitivity and accuracy of this assay were adequate for characterization of talinolol in rat plasma and the assay has been applied successfully to the in vivo kinetic study of talinolol in rats. After talinolol (10 mg kg(-1)) was given orally, the maximum concentration and the AUC(0-∞) were 341.8 ± 99.4 ng ml(-1) and 976.26 ± 173.37 ng h ml(-1), respectively. The oral bioavailability was approximately 52.14 ± 9.26%.

Conclusion: The advantages of our method are a small sample volume (200 µl), short analysis time (13.5 min) and a simple sample extraction and clean-up compared with multiple extraction and washing steps and a longer analysis time in previously published methods.