QUANTIFICATION OF TWO MARKER COMPOUNDS IN GMELINA ARBOREA ROXB. STEM BARK USING VALIDATED THIN LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHIC-DENSITOMETRIC METHOD

Gmelina arborea Roxb. (Verbenaceae) is known as Gambhari in Ayurvedic System of medicine and being used as immuno-modulator since ancient time. Plant sterols such as β-sitosterol and Lupeol are reported to have such activity. A simple, accurate, precise, rapid and reproducible TLC densitometric method was developed for simultaneous estimation of β-sitosterol and Lupeol in plant stem bark. Compounds were separated on silica gel 60 F254 HPTLC plate using Toluene: Ethyl acetate: Formic acid (8.8:1.3:0.1, v/v/v) using Anisaldehyde-Sulphuric acid as the derivatizing reagent. TLC Analysis was performed at 520 nm. Rf value of β-sitosterol and Lupeol were found to be 0.34±0.02 and 0.46±0.01 respectively. Linearity range was 150-350 ng/spot and 300-700 ng/spot with correlation coefficient 0.998 and 0.999 for β -sitosterol and Lupeol, respectively. Method was validated as per ICH guideline. The accuracy was found to be 100.55-102.86% and 99.40-101.56% for β-sitosterol and Lupeol, respectively by recovery studies. The amount of β-sitosterol and Lupeol was found to be 4.4 mg % and 3.6 mg %. This method can be employed for routine quality control analysis of β-sitosterol and Lupeol in stem bark of Gmelina arborea Roxb.