To develop a sensitive high performance liquid chromatography （HPLC） assay for the determination of trans-resveratrol in mouse liver. The whole liver of a mouse was removed from the body, homogenated, and extracted by ethyl acetate. The organic layer was isolated and evaporated to dryness, the residue was reconstituted in 0.2 mL mobile phase for centrifugation, and 50 uL of the supernatant was injected into the/-IPLC instrument. The sample was separated on a Shimadzu ODS column （150 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 um） at 35 ℃ and detected by ultraviolet （UV） detector at the wavelength of 305 nm. The mobile phase consisted of methanol and 0.1 mol/L acetic acid （4：6, v/v） with the flow-rote at 1 mL/min. The limit of detection was 3.0 ng/g in liver homogenate with a signal/noise ratio of 3：1. The linear range of the calibration curve was 5.0-120.0 ng/g. The mean recoveries at the concentrations of 6, 10 and 80 ng/g were 102%, 96.0% and 91.5%, respectively. The RSDs for inter- and intra-day assays were less than 5%. Compared with other reported methods, this method was faster and more sensitive. It was also proved to be of good linearity, selectivity, accuracy and precision, and can be efficiently applied to the pharmacoldnetic study of trans-resveratrol in mouse liver.
