Determination of aloesin in plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the determination of aloesin in human plasma. The method involved deproteinization of biological samples with 1 volume of each 0.04 M Ba(OH)2 and 10% ZnSO4 aqueous solution. A 50-microliter aliquot of the supernatant was injected onto a C18 reversed-phase column. The mobile phase, methanol-H2O (20:80, v/v), was run at a flow-rate 1.5 ml/min. The column effluent was monitored by a ultraviolet detector at 254 nm. The retention time of aloesin was 7 min. The detection limit for aloesin in human plasma was 0.1 microgram/ml. The coefficient of variation of the assay was generally low (below 5.04%) for human plasma. No interferences from endogenous substances were observed.