Metabolic profile of alkaloids in Rhizoma Coptidis in rat plasma, urine and feces after oral administration using ultra‐high‐performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry

Abstract

Rationale: Rhizoma Coptidis (RC) has been used to treat diabetes, pertussis, bacillary dysentery, sore throat, eczema, and aphtha for thousands of years. Alkaloids are the major components in RC, and its curative effect is achieved by oral administration.However, information on its composition in vivo is weak. Methods:In this study, ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/QTOF-MS) was used to analyze the major active components and their metabolites in rat plasma, urine and feces after oral administration of RC extract. Results:A total of 96 compounds including 8 prototype compounds and 88 metabolites were identified, and hydroxylation, reduction, demethylenation, demethylation, dehydrogenation, sulfation, glucuronidation and methylation were the major metabolic pathways. Conclusions:This study analyzed metabolic processes of the major active components in RC in vivo, which provided important information for its active composition and in vivo mechanism research. Meanwhile, metabolic profile studies on representative compounds provided valuable reference materials to elucidate the full-scale metabolites of RC.

The colonic metabolism differences of main alkaloids in normal and colitis mice treated with Coptis chinensis Franch. and Sophora flavescens Ait. herbal pair using liquid chromatography‐high resolution mass spectrometry method combined with chemometrics

“…By comparison with the literature [11], 28 metabolites were found and the relevant information of the metabolites identified was listed in Table 1. As shown in Figure 4A, Metabolite M6(C 19 H 18 NO 5 , t R = 12.53 min) produced a quasi‐molecular ion at m/z 324.1223, and this ion showed product ions at m/z 308.0890, 280.0944, and 266.0788, which were all 12 Da less than that of berberine, suggesting that cleavage of a methylene group from berberine.…”

“…through UPLC‐MS [5]. Their metabolite pathways were similar, largely including phase I metabolism, such as hydroxylation, reduction, demethylation, etc, and phase II metabolism, such as sulfation and glucuronidation [11, 12].…”

An ultra‐performance liquid chromatography–quadrupole time‐of‐flight tandem mass spectrometry method based on a four‐step analysis strategy to investigate metabolites of Qi‐Yu‐San‐Long decoction in rat plasma

“…11 At the same time, it can also correlate and belong to the precursor ion and product ions according to their chromatographic behavior. These characteristics of UPLC-QTOF/ MS E enable its wider use in the study of the chemical composition of single herb 12,13 and Chinese medicinal formula, [14][15][16] metabolites profiling, [17][18][19][20] and metabolomics study. [21][22][23] Furthermore, the postacquisition data-processing platform is designed to mine xenobiotics in complex biological samples (plasma, bile, urine, or feces) and predict possible biotransformation pathways.…”