ISOLATION, CHARACTERIZATION AND ESTIMATION OF MARKER COMPOUND OF VISCUM ALBUM L

Marker based standardization of plant drugs has become important for obtaining their reproducible therapeutic effects. Viscum album L. (Ujjral; family – Viscaceae), an Indian traditional plant, has not been standardized on the basis of marker compound. Thus, it was considered worthwhile to isolate main chemical constituent from V. album aerial parts and to standardize plant on the basis of isolated constituent by a developed and validated TLC densitometric method. The ethyl acetate fraction (EAF) was obtained from methanol extract of plant using standard procedure. EAF of the plant was subjected to column chromatography and yielded orange-yellow coloured crystalline compound. The compound was characterized as 2',4-dihydroxy-4',6'-dimethoxy chalcone. A TLC densitometric method was developed to estimate the content of isolated chalcone compound. The content of 2',4-dihydroxy-4',6'-dimethoxy chalcone was found to be 0.0375% w/w. The developed TLC densitometric method was found to be precise and accurate as per ICH guidelines.