Pharmacokinetic study of precisely representative antidepressant, prokinetic, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative compounds from Fructus aurantii and Magnolia Bark.

Background: Currently, few herbal pharmacokinetic (PK) parameters have been applied successfully for therapeutic monitoring because of the complexity of consistency when there are multiple chemicals and efficacies.

Purpose: The present study aims to evaluate the herbal PK properties by investigating the PK parameters of the 8 absorbed bioactive compounds (ABCs), which can represent its parent herbal holistic efficacy, to achieve a PK therapeutic monitoring of herbs.

Method: First, we tested the hypothesis that the antidepressant and prokinetic effects and related anti-inflammation and anti-oxidation activity (APIO) by Fructus aurantii-Magnolia Bark (FM) formula are related to 8 compounds according to the absorbable evidence and the determined contents. Subsequently, stable and representative APIO from 8ABCs allowed us to develop a sensitive and selective liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the simultaneous determination of 8 compounds following the oral administration of FM decoction (20 g/kg) in rats.

Result: 8 compounds either including Meranzin hydrate (MH) or MH alone almost identically (8 compounds: 91.62-108.82%)or nearly(MH: 65.38-88.41%) replicated the parent formula FM in terms of efficacy for inducing APIO.

Conclusion: This unifying strategy shows how multi-herb formulas pharmacokinetic therapeutic monitoring can be achieved by the method we established.