The fruits and bark of different species of Terminalia (Combretaceae) trees have been used since the Vedic period (1500–500 BC) for the
treatment of various aliments [1]. Terminalia chebula Retz. is a native plant to India and Southeast Asia [2]. The medicinal properties
of T . chebula have been known from anicent times and were described by Charaka in his text „Charaka
samhita“ [3]. The friut powder of T . chebula is used in India to treat several diseases ranging from digestive, coronary disorders
to allergic and infectious diseases such as cough and skin disorders.
A simple, precise and rapid high performance liquid chromatography (HPTLC) method
was developed for the quantitative determination of four saponins (arjunglucoside-I
(1), arjunetin (2), arjungenin (3), arjunolic acid (4)) from fruits T . chebula. The separation of these compounds was carried out on silica gel 60 F254 elution with chloroform: methanol (8.2: 1.8 v/v) and detection wavelength at 600nm
after spraying with anisaldehyde reagent. The developed method gave a good linear
regression relationship between peak area and concentration was obtained for the six
saponins mentioned above. The developed method can be applied to different species
of Terminalia in order to discriminate between them.
Fig 1: Densitogram of (track A) Extract of T. chebula and (track B) Standard mix with increasing Rf (1–4).
Acknowledgements: This research is supported in part by Science Based Authentication of Dietary Supplements
and Botanical Dietary Supplement Research funded by the Food and Drug Administration
grant numbers 5U01FD002071–09 and 1U01FD003871–01, and the United States Department
of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Specific Cooperative Agreement No.
58–6408–2-0009. References: [1] Singh DV, Verma MM, et al. (2002) Phytochem Anal 13: 207–210. [2] Cheng HY, Lin
TC, et al. (2003) Biol Pharm Bull 26: 1331–1335. [3] Gandhi NM, Nair CKK (2005) Mol
Cellular Biochem 277: 43–48.
