Determination of pravastatin and pravastatin lactone in rat plasma and urine using UHPLC–MS/MS and microextraction by packed sorbent

A simple and reproducible method for the determination of pravastatin and pravastatin lactone in rat plasma and urine by means of ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS) using deuterium labeled internal standards for quantification is reported. Separation of analytes was performed on BEH C18 analytical column (50 mm × 2.1 mm, 1.7 μm), using gradient elution by mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 1 mM ammonium acetate at pH 4.0. Run time was 2 min. Quantification of analytes was performed using the SRM (selected reaction monitoring) experiment in ESI negative ion mode for pravastatin and in ESI positive ion mode for pravastatin lactone. Sample treatment consisted of a protein precipitation by ACN and microextraction by packed sorbent (MEPS) for rat plasma. Simple MEPS procedure was sufficient for rat urine. MEPS was implemented using the C8 sorbent inserted into a microvolume syringe, eVol hand-held automated analytical syringe and a small volume of sample (50 μl). The analytes were eluted by 100 μl of the mixture of acetonitrile: 0.01 M ammonium acetate pH 4.5 (90:10, v:v). The method was validated and demonstrated good linearity in range 5–500 nmol/l (r2 > 0.9990) for plasma and urine samples. Method recovery was ranged within 97–109% for plasma samples and 92–101% for the urine samples. Intra-day precision expressed as the % of RSD was lower than 8% for the plasma samples and lower than 7% for the urine samples. The method was validated with sensitivity reaching LOD 1.5 nmol/l and LOQ 5 nmol/l in plasma and urine samples. The method was applied for the measurement of pharmacokinetic plots of pravastatin and pravastatin lactone in rat plasma and urine samples.