17 and 18 Although the use of solid-phase extraction procedures reduces the matrix effect considerably, it increases overall time and cost of analysis. In the present method simple liquid–liquid extraction procedure, Nutlin-3 purchase which was fast enough for high-throughput analysis, was optimized. Knowing that AT

is a member of the statins that are notoriously unstable and convert in solvents from open acid form to lactone form and vice versa, by non enzymatic reactions that are pH dependent, attempt was made to control this interconversion by adding phosphate buffer (pH 6.8). This is done before the sample extraction with the organic solvent to favour the acid form. 19, 20, 21 and 22 The good recovery of AT and EZ from plasma using the liquid–liquid extraction procedure proved that this extraction method reliably eliminated interfering material from plasma. The mean percent recovery values of AT were 94.4, 95.7 and 95.8% at low, medium and high quality control levels while that of EZ were 93.5, 95.0 and 92.6% at low, medium and high quality control levels respectively. The mean percent recovery of the IS at a concentration of 100 ng mL−1 was 90.9% with an acceptable precision (RSD < 8%). Typical MRM chromatograms obtained from different

plasma blank samples, plasma spiked Linsitinib mw with standard AT and EZ (0.2, 4, 15 ng mL−1) and IS (100 ng mL−1), are shown in Figs. 2 and 3. Retention times of AT, EZ and the IS were 1.01, 0.97 and 0.22 min, respectively. No significant interference from endogenous peaks was observed at these retention times. Calibration curves were linear in the concentration range of 0.1–20 ng mL−1 and for

both AT and EZ. The calibration curves were fitted by weighted least-squares linear regression. The precision and accuracy of calibration samples for AT and EZ in human plasma are given in Table 2. The mean ± SD of six standard curve slopes for AT and EZ were 1.069 ± 0.018 and 0.037 ± 0.001, respectively. The coefficient of determination (R2) of the calibration curves was ≥0.999 for both analytes. The lowest limit of quantification was determined to be 0.1 ng mL−1 for both analytes with a signal to noise ratio of 5.8 and 7.1 for AT and EZ respectively ( Fig. 2). The intra- and inter-day precision and accuracy of three quality control concentrations (0.2, 4, 15 ng mL−1) are summarized in Table 3. For AT intra- and inter-day RSDs were less than 5.60 and 8.24%, respectively, whereas intra-day accuracy ranged from 94.80 to 97.78% with a mean of 95.9% and inter-day accuracy ranged from 93.6 to 96.10% with a mean of 95.2%. For EZ intra- and inter-day RSD was less than 4.73 and 7.13%, respectively. Intra-day accuracy ranged from 92.3 to 96.8% with a mean of 94.1% and inter-day accuracy ranged from 92.0 to 97.2% with a mean of 94.3%. The ability to dilute samples with concentrations above the upper limit of quantification could be made with accuracy of 93.