Abstract
A sensitive and selective high‐performance liquid chromatography method was developed and validated to determine the prototype of salvianolic acid B and the metabolites of phenolic acids (protocatechuic acid, vanillic acid and ferulic acid) in rat tissues after oral administration of total phenolic acids and salvianolic acid B extracted from the roots of Salvia miltiorrhiza, respectively. The tissue samples were treated with a simple liquid–liquid extraction prior to HPLC. Analysis of the extract was performed on a reverse‐phase C~18~ column with a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 0.05% trifluoracetic acid. The calibration curves for the four phenolic acids were linear in the given concentration ranges. The intra‐day and inter‐day relative standard deviations in the measurement of quality control samples were less than 10% and the accuracies were in the range of 88–115%. The average recoveries of all the tissues ranged from 78.0 to 111.8%. This method was successfully applied to evaluate the distribution of the four phenolic acids in rat tissues after oral administration of total phenolic acids of Salvia miltiorrhiza or salvianolic acid B and the possible metabolic pathway was illustrated. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.