Determination and pharmacokinetic study of pirfenidone in rat plasma by UPLC–MS/MS

Recent Advances on Drug Analyses Using Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatographic Techniques and their Application to the Biological Samples

Introduction:

Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatographic (UPLC) method enables analyst to establish an analysis at higher pressure than High Performance Liquid Chromatographic (HPLC) method towards liquid chromatographic methods. UPLC method provides the opportunity to study a higher pressure compared to HPLC, and therefore smaller column in terms of particle size and internal diameter are generally used in drug analysis. The UPLC method has attracted gradually due to its advantages such as short analysis time, the small amount of waste reagents and the significant savings in the cost of their destruction process. In this review, the recent selected studies related to the UPLC method and its method validation are summarized. The drug analyses and the results of the studies which were investigated by UPLC method, with certain parameters from literature are presented.

Background:

Quantitative determination of drug active substances by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) from Liquid Chromatography (LC) methods has been carried out since the 1970's with the use of standard analytical LC methods. In today's conditions, rapid and very fast even ultra-fast, flow rates are achieved compared to conventional HPLC due to shortening analysis times, increasing method efficiency and resolution, reducing sample volume (and hence injection volume), reducing waste mobile phase. Using smaller particles, the speed and peak capacity are expanding to new limit and this technology is named as Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography. In recent years, as a general trend in liquid chromatography, ultra-performance liquid chromatography has taken the place of HPLC methods. The time of analysis was for several minutes, now with a total analysis time of around 1-2 minutes. The benefits of transferring HPLC to UPLC are much better understood when considering the thousands of analyzes performed for each active substance, in order to reduce the cost of analytical laboratories where relevant analysis of drug active substances are performed without lowering the cost of research and development activities.

Methods:

The German Chemist Friedrich Ferdinand Runge, proposed the use of reactive impregnated filter paper for the identification of dyestuffs in 1855 and at that time the first chromatographic method in which a liquid mobile phase was used, was reviewed. Christian Friedrich Chönbein, who reported that the substances were dragged at different speeds in the filter paper due to capillary effect, was followed by the Russian botanist Mikhail S. Tswet, who planted studies on color pigment in 1906. Tswet observes the color separations of many plant pigments, such as chlorophyll and xanthophyll when he passes the plant pigment extract isolated from plant through the powder CaCO3 that he filled in the glass column. This method based on color separation gives the name of "chromatographie" chromatography by using the words "chroma" meaning "Latin" and "graphein" meaning writing.

Results and Conclusion:

Because the UPLC method can be run smoothly at higher pressures than the HPLC method, it offers the possibility of analyzing using much smaller column sizes and column diameters. Moreover, UPLC method has advantages, such as short analysis time, the small amount of waste reagents and the significant savings in the cost of their destruction process. The use of the UPLC method especially analyses in biological samples such as human plasma, brain sample, rat plasma, etc. increasingly time-consuming due to the fact that the analysis time is very short compared to the HPLC, because of the small amount of waste analytes and the considerable savings in their cost.

Pirfenidone alleviates lung ischemia-reperfusion injury in a rat model

OBJECTIVE

Lung ischemia-reperfusion injury is among the complications seen after lung transplantation, resulting in morbidity and mortality. Pirfenidone, an antifibrotic agent for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, is reported to have cytoprotective properties in various disease models. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of pirfenidone on lung ischemia-reperfusion injury.

METHODS

Male Lewis rats (260-290 g) were divided into 3 groups: sham group (n = 5), warm ischemia (WI) group (n = 10), and WI plus pirfenidone (WI+PFD) group (n = 10). The sham group underwent 210 minutes of perfusion without ischemia. The WI and WI+PFD groups underwent 90 minutes of warm ischemia and 120 minutes of reperfusion. In the WI+PFD group, pirfenidone (300 mg/kg) was administered orally by gavage 30 minutes before ischemia. After reperfusion, arterial blood gas analysis, lung mechanics, lung wet-to-dry weight ratio, and histologic findings were obtained. The gene expressions of proinflammatory cytokines in lung tissue were measured by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction.

RESULTS

Compared with the WI group, the WI+PFD group had significantly better dynamic pulmonary compliance (P < .01) and oxygenation levels (P < .05). The wet-to-dry ratio was lower in the WI+PFD group (P < .05). Histologic analysis showed that the WI+PFD group had reduced perivascular edema and neutrophil infiltration. The expression of tumor necrosis factor-α messenger RNA was decreased in the WI+PFD group (P < .05).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results revealed that in a rat hilar clamp model, pirfenidone alleviated lung ischemia-reperfusion through anti-inflammatory effects.

Antioxidants: Characterization, natural sources, extraction and analysis

Recently many review papers regarding antioxidants from different sources and different extraction and quantification procedures have been published. However none of them has all the information regarding antioxidants (chemistry, sources, extraction and quantification). This article tries to take a different perspective on antioxidants for the new researcher involved in this field. Antioxidants from fruit, vegetables and beverages play an important role in human health, for example preventing cancer and cardiovascular diseases, and lowering the incidence of different diseases. In this paper the main classes of antioxidants are presented: vitamins, carotenoids and polyphenols. Recently, many analytical methodologies involving diverse instrumental techniques have been developed for the extraction, separation, identification and quantification of these compounds. Antioxidants have been quantified by different researchers using one or more of these methods: in vivo, in vitro, electrochemical, chemiluminescent, electron spin resonance, chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, nuclear magnetic resonance, near infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry methods.