Recently, Professor Liu Jieqing from the School of Medicine of Huaqiao University (HQU) and his team published a research paper titled “Determination of arbutin in vitro and in vivo by LC-MS/MS: Pre-clinical evaluation of natural product arbutin for its early medicinal properties” in Journal of Ethnopharmacology(SCI Q1, TOP, IF=5.4), a renowned international journal of pharmacology.

Arbutin is a naturally occurring glucoside extracted from plants, known for its antioxidant and tyrosinase inhibiting properties. It is widely used in cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. With in-depth study of arbutin, its application in disease treatment is expanding, presenting promising prospects. However, few reports have been made on the metabolic stability, plasma protein binding rate, and pharmacokinetic properties of arbutin. This study developed an efficient and rapid liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assay for determining arbutin in plasma, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) of arbutin, enriching our understanding of its metabolism stability and pharmacokinetics properties. It establishes a foundation for further structural optimization, pharmacological studies, and the clinical development of arbutin.

HQU graduate students Wang Qiaolai and Zhang Peixi majoring in biomedicalengineering co-first authored the paper, with Prof. Liu Jieqing as the corresponding author and HQU as the corresponding affiliation.

The research was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Industry-University-Research Collaboration Program of Fujian Province, Quanzhou  High-level Talents Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program.

Link to the paper:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2024.118232

(Editor: Wei Linying)