Studies on separation and pharmacokinetics of m-nisoldipine enantiomers in beagle dog plasma by LC/MS/MS.

A rapid, sensitive and selective liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric (LC/MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the separation and determination of m-nisoldipine enantiomers in beagle dog plasma. Samples were pretreated by a single-step protein precipitation with acetonitrile. After m-nisoldipine racemic administration to beagle dogs, samples of m-nisoldipine enantiomers in beagle dog plasma were separated and determined on a ULTRON ES-OVM column (150 × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) at 20°C with a mobile phase consisted of methanol-acetonitrile-ammonium acetate (pH 7.0; 2mM) (15:15:70, v/v/v) at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min. Chromatograms were monitored at 237 nm, and the API 4000 triple quadrupole mass spectrometer was operated in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) scan mode using ElectroSpray ionization (ESI) source. The good linearity (rs=0.9958 and rr=0.9983) were found in the range 0.25-20 ng/mL. The lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) obtained was 0.25 ng/mL (n=6). All the validation data, such as accuracy, precision, intra-day and inter-day repeatability, were within the required limits. The method was successfully applied to separation and pharmacokinetics of m-nisoldipine enantiomers in beagle dog plasma. The result of statistics analysis shows that there are no significant differences between R-(-)-m-nisoldipine and S-(+)-m-nisoldipine (p>0.05). The study provides necessary evidences for the research and new drug development of m-nisoldipine enantiomers.