THIN LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHY - AS A TOOL FOR STANDARDIZATION OF AYURVEDIC MEDICINE, TRIPHALA CHURNA

Ayurvedic and other traditional forms of medicines require standardization to bring them at par with modern molecular medicine. The present study is to use thin layer chromatographic technique to understand the presence and variation of four important secondary metabolites namely, steroids, terpenoids, flavoniods and alkaloids in the Ayurvedic preparation, Triphala churna and its constituent ingredients, namely, Terminalia bellerica, terminalia chebula and Embelica officinalis. The TLC profiles of steroids, terpenoids, flavonoids and alkaloids indicated different behaviour for only rinds, only seeds, their respective mixtures, whole fruits separately and their mixtures. The results were compared with standards of each metabolite and also with market samples. It was observed that alkaloids were almost similar in all the samples indicating their predominance in Triphala ingredients as well as those of mixtures. Embelica officinalis was having more dominating and masking effect over the other two constituents for all the four metabolites studied. It was also clear that most of the market samples indicated the presence of whole fruits as their raw materials instead of the rinds alone, which needs to be addressed. From the study it is clear that this methodology can be used as a cheap tool to estimate the presence of the constituents in each sample and suggest this easy method for quality analysis of the samples before they come to market. Key Words: TLC, Triphala churna, Terminalia bellerica, Terminalia chebula, Embelica officinalis, Rf, standardization, Prednisolone, Quercetine, Caffine, Retinol.