Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS) with an eletcrospray ionization (ESI) interface was applied to the identification of metabolites of IY81149 in the rat plasma. Fragments obtained using collision-induced dissociation (CID) in both positive and negative modes were utilized to elucidate the structure of metabolites. The eluent from the conventional HPLC column was split and directly introduced into an ESI-mass spectrometer for the identification of the structures. the CID technique allowed the sensitive identification of sulfonyl-IY81149 and hydroxy-IY81149 from the rat plasma.