An ionic liquid-based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction followed by RP-HPLC determination of the most commonly prescribed protease inhibitor, saquinavir, in rat plasma was developed and validated. The effects of different ionic liquids, dispersive solvents, extractant/disperser ratio and salt concentration on sample recovery and enrichment were studied. Among the ionic liquids investigated, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate was found to be most effective for extraction of saquinavir from rat serum. The recovery was found to be 95% at an extractant/disperser ratio of 0.43 using 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate and methanol as extraction and dispersive solvents. The recovery was further enhanced to 99.5% by addition of 5.0% NaCl. A threefold enhancement in detection and quantification limits was achieved, at 0.01 and 0.03 µg/mL, compared with the conventional protein precipitation method. A linear relationship was observed in the range of 0.035-10.0 µg/mL with a correlation coefficient (r(2) ) of 0.9996. The method was validated and applied to study pharmacokinetics of saquinavir in rat serum.
Keywords: RP-HPLC; dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction; ionic liquid; rat serum; saquinavir.
Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.