Determination of curcumol in rat plasma by capillary gas chromatography with a hydrogen flame ionization detector

A simple and sensitive capillary gas chromatography with a hydrogen flame ionization detector (GC-FID) method was developed for the determination of curcumol in rat plasma. From a variety of compounds and solvents tested, buagafuran was selected as the internal standard (IS) and acetonitrile was found to be the best protein precipitation agent and solvent for extracting curcumol from plasma and tissues samples. (Buagafuran was used as an internal standard. Curcumol was extracted by a protein precipitation with acetonitrile.) The samples were determined by GC on an HP-5 column (30.0 m x 0.32 mm, 0.25 microm); inlet volume 2 microL; split ratio 10 : 1; inlet temperature 250 degrees C; oven temperature 180 degrees C; flow 1.0 mL/.min; FID 250 degrees C; carrier gas N(2). The resulting retention times of curcumol and IS were 6.0 and 9.5 min. There was good linearity over the range 0.133-133.3 microg/mL (r = 0.9999) in plasma samples. The method recoveries were 97.7-102.0% in plasma, and the intra- and inter-day variances (RSD) were less than 15% in all cases. The GC method was applied to develop a pharmacokinetics study in which experimental rats received a single administration of curcumol by intravenous injection.