Importance of HPLC in Analysis of Plants Extracts

When large numbers of investigating plants secondary metabolites from plants, it is important to have the means available to perform a characterization of the samples in order to provide a means of selecting species for study. This can be achieved by combining simple biological assays with High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) analyses. HPLC is an extremely versatile technique; the reversed-phase method is able to handle compounds of a diverse polarity and molecular mass. Reversed phase chromatography has found both analytical and preparative applications in the area of phytochemical separation and purification. Once a candidate plant has been chosen, a suitable isolation procedure can be employed for the isolation of the active principles.