ESTABLISHMENT OF QUALITY STANDARDS OF ABRUS PRECATORIUS L. (ROOT) BY PHYSICOCHEMICAL AND HPTLC METHOD

Standardization of herbal drugs is an essential aspect while considering the quality of the herbal drug, consistency in bioactive content and therapeutic efficacy. The roots, seeds and leaves of Abrus precatorius L. possesses a number of biological activities such as anti-bacterial, anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, anti-fertility, nephroprotective and anti-seratonergic activity. The root of Abrus precatorius L. contains a special compound glycyrrhizin, which is an important bioactive compound widely used against cough in the Siddha, Unani and Ayurvedic system of medicines. In view of its medicinal importance, the present study was focused to standardize the Abrus precatorius L. root according to pharmacopoieal standard methods. Qualitative physicochemical studies and High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) analysis were performed to identify and to assure the quality of the herbal drug.


…………………………………………………………………………………………………….... Introduction:-
In recent days, peoples are showing great interest towards the traditional medicine in preventing various diseases, because of its cheap, safe and effective effects [1]. The traditional medicinal plants are major raw materials for pharmaceutical industry and gaining importance in worldwide drug market. The unavailability of rigid quality control profiles for herbal materials are facing major problem in herbal industry [2]. Hence, the proper standardization and identification of herbal materials is important in order to contribute the assurance of safety, quality, efficacy and reproducibility of the herbals [3]. HPTLC is one of the most ideal, flexible, reliable and cost effective separation techniques for the analysis of botanicals and herbal drugs. This technique is also used for the identification of chemical constituents, determination of impurities and quantitative determination of active substances. It also serves as a vital technique in the routine identification of complex finger prints of plant extracts, pharmaceutical products and guarantees reproducible results [4].
The present work is concentrated on standardization of Abrus precatorius L. root. The development of chromatogram serves as a template for identification and authentication of Abrus precatorius L. root.

Plant material
Abrus precatorius L. root were collected around Chennai and were identified at Drug Standardization Research Unit, Regional Research Institute of Unani Medicine, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. The collected root was washed, dried, pulverized and stored in an air tight container for further studies.

Development of HPTLC Finger print profile
The HPTLC analyses were performed on aluminum plates pre-coated with silica gel 60 F254 (Merck, Germany). 8 μl of root extract were applied on the plate of 5 x 10 cm by HPTLC as bands of 8 mm of each with help of CAMAG ATS4 sample applicator. The plated were developed in a CAMAG twin-trough chamber previously equilibrated with a mobile phase for 30 mins.

Results and Discussion:-
The root of Abrus precatorius L. contains important source of bioactive constituents for the growth of new chemotherapeutic agents. The standardization of crude drug helps to determine the quality and purity of the drug in the powdered form. The root of Abrus precatorius L. subjected to physicochemical parameters such as foreign matter, moisture content, ash values, extractive values and their observations were depicted in Table 1 & Graph 1. The foreign matter studies used to determine the contaminations such as stones, sand, harmful and poisonous foreign matter and presence of chemical residues. This parameter used to eliminate the toxin materials present in the plant materials. The moisture content analysis of the drug should be minimized in order to prevent from decomposition due to chemical change or contamination of crude drug. The ash value studies are used to determine the purity and quality of crude drugs. The low ash values specify the purity of drug and the high ash values indicate the adulteration, substitution and contamination of crude drug.
Extractive values analysis used to evaluate the chemical constituents present in the herbal drug and also helps to identify the solubility nature of specific components in each solvents. These values mainly used to estimate the exhausted and adulterated drugs. Water-soluble extractives are used to determine the water soluble active component of herbal drugs such as sugar, glycosides, tannins, acids, mucilage etc. Alcohol-soluble extractive values are an important method to estimate the various components like resins, tannins, saponins, alkaloids etc. Hexanesoluble extractives are indicative of volatile and non volatile substances. HPTLC analyses plays significant role in preliminary separation and determination of chemical constituents present in the plant materials. This technique is also efficient for quick evaluation of the quality of herbal drug. The qualitative chromatographic analysis for Abrus precatorius L. root extracts are studied in two different solvents such as ethanol and chloroform. In both the solvent, numbers of spots were observed under UV 254 and 366 nm is shown

Conclusion:-
Physicochemical standards are great significance in assuring the quality, authenticity as well as purity and efficacy of the drug. The results indicated that the chloroform and alcohol extracts of Abrus precatorius L. root contained a number of bioactive compounds. Hence, the qualitative evaluation of HPTLC finger print profiles could be useful in the authentication and quality control of the drug and to ensure the therapeutic efficacy.