Quality assessment of certain Indian plant drugs by chemical fingerprinting and chemometric analysis

Abstract

The present work was carried out on two industrially important highly traded medicinal plants, Cissus quadrangularis Linn. and Saraca asoca (Roxb.) de Wilde. The project involved: a. collecting samples from cultivated plants and markets in different geographical locations of the country; b. optimizing their method of extraction using DoE and response surface methodology; c. generating chemical fingerprints using TLC, HPLC, LC-MS, FT-IR; d. developing TLC and HPLC methods of analysis and carrying out multiple marker analysis; e. in- vitro pharmacological evaluation of all samples; and f. analyzing the data using chemometric tools. A systematically designed study was planned and accomplished using state-of-the art techniques. The developed fingerprints of Cissus can be used by all working in the area including research and manufacturing of herbal products for quality assessment of the plant in the absence of established actives. The excellent osteoblasts proliferation and alkaline phosphatase activity supported its use in traditional medicine. Saraca asoca is a prized medicinal plant and its market samples largely failed to be genuine. The profiles of cultivated samples matched among themselves but differed from the market samples. The fingerprint profiles and the developed analytical methods of multiple marker analysis shall find immense use by the industry to discriminate low quality materials largely sold in the market. The analysis further showed that other two species, S. indica, S. thaipingensis and flowers of S. asoca can be the potential substitute for the genuine drug. The study also revealed geographical location, which gave best performing plant material for both the selected plants and the samples data can be used to find elite sources of raw material procurement. The work shall be of significant value to the herbal drug industry for processing and ensuring quality raw material and producing actives-enriched extracts with uniform chemical composition for better efficacy and safety. newline