Determination of the flavone tricin in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography

Tricin is a flavone constituent of brown rice and rice bran, which interferes potently with the survival of human-derived breast and colon cancer cells in vitro. A specific and simple high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was developed for the determination of tricin in human plasma with UV-visible detection. HPLC separation on Hypersil-BDS C(18) (4.6 x 250 mm) was carried out with an isocratic mobile phase of 52% methanol in 0.1 m ammonium acetate, pH 5.10, containing 0.27 mm disodium ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid and detection at 355 nm. The retention times of tricin and quercetin (internal standard) were 14.2 and 7.8 min, respectively. The assay was linear in the range 1-100 microg/mL (r(2 ) > or = 0.995). Tricin in plasma was efficiently extracted with 0.1 m acetic acid in acetone, and the recoveries were in the range 92.6-102.8% (n = 6) with relative standard deviation below 10% for three concentrations of tricin, 5, 10 and 100 microg/mL. The lower limit of quantitation (relative standard deviation <20%) was 1 microg/mL.