Chemical profiling, quantitation, and bioactivities of Du-Zhong tea.

Du-Zhong tea is a health beverage produced from Eucommia ulmoides leaves (EUL) as raw materials using traditional tea processing and Chinese herbal pieces processing methods. To evaluate the differences between tender leaves and mature leaves of Du-Zhong tea, UPLC-Q-TOF MS was used to analyze the constituents in EUL collected in April and August. A total of 52 compounds, including iridoids, phenylpropanoids, flavonoids, lignans, and other types of compounds were identified. The contents of nine ingredients in the tender and mature leaves of E. ulmoides were determined by HPLC-DAD analysis. The results show that the average contents of the compounds in tender leaves were significantly higher than those in mature leaves. Lastly, the antioxidant and antipancreatic lipase activities of commercial Du-Zhong tea made by leaves of different maturity were evaluated. Du-Zhong tea with d-grade exhibited relatively higher antioxidant, while C-grade exhibited greater lipase inhibitory activities.

Development and validation of high liquid performance chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for simultaneous determination of geniposidic acid and aucubin in rat plasma for pharmacokinetic study after oral administration of Du-zhong tea extract.

A specific and sensitive high performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometric (HPLC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of geniposidic acid and aucubin in rat plasma after oral administration of Du-zhong tea extract. The plasma samples were pretreated by protein precipitation with methanol and the chromatographic separation was performed on a Hypersil C18 column (4.6 mm×250 mm, 5 µm), using a gradient mobile phase system of water-methanol (0.05% formic acid). The detection was accomplished by multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) scanning via electrospray ionization source operating in the negative ionization mode. The linear range was 1-1,000 ng/mL for geniposidic acid and 0.2-200 ng/mL for aucubin, respectively. The accuracy (relative error, R.E.%) were between -5.40 and 5.00%, while the intra-day and inter-day precisions were less than 7.95 and 7.87% for the two analytes, respectively. The method was fully validated for the sensitivity, selectivity, recovery, matrix effect and stability. Then this method was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic study of geniposidic acid and aucubin after oral administration of Du-zhong tea extract to rats and the results indicated that this HPLC-MS/MS assay is a valuable method for the pharmacokinetic study of geniposidic acid and aucubin in rat plasma.