Comparative in vivo constituents and pharmacokinetic study in rats after oral administration of Ultrafine Granular Powder and Traditional Decoction Slices of Chinese Salvia.

Salvia miltiorrhiza, one of the most famous herbal medicines, is commonly used for the treatment of coronary heart diseases in China. Besides traditional decoction pieces, another relatively new product of S. miltiorrhiza, Ultrafine Granular Powder (D90 < 45 μm), is also increasingly used nowadays. In this paper, a UHPLC-LTQ-Orbitrap MS technique was developed for metabolite profile study after oral administration of Ultrafine Granular Powder (UGP) and Traditional Decoction Slices (TDS) of S. miltiorrhiza. The results showed that the in vivo absorbed compounds from UGP were much more than TDS, indicating that different types of products from S. miltiorrhiza would have different metabolic process in vivo. Furthermore, a UHPLC-Q-Trap MS/MS method of simultaneously determining four tanshinone (tanshinone IIA, dihydrotanshinone I, tanshinone I, and cryptotanshinone) was established and applied to assess the pharmacokinetics of the two types of products. All the analytes displayed significant higher AUC and Cmax after oral administration of UGP than those of TDS, indicating that ultrafine powder product could improve the bioavailability and absorption of cryptotanshinon,tanshinone II A,dihydrotanshinonE I, tanshinone I in vivo. The present study provides scientific information for further exploration the pharmacology of these two types of S. miltiorrhiza and offers a reference for clinical administration of S. miltiorrhiza.