PRELIMINARY PHYTOCHEMICAL SCREENING AND HPTLC FINGERPRINT PROFILE OF TRAGIA PLUKENETII

Herbal medicine is the oldest form of health care known to humanity and has been used in all cultures throughout history. The validation of these novel products needs powerful analytical devices tailored for the study of herbal extracts in order to assess composition and face their natural complexity as a resource. The last item is important and crucial for the capacity and utility of the analytical results that means that each product should be analyzed with the right approach. Having in mind these arguments, the present study was selected HPTLC as useful tool for the analysis. The present study is mainly focused to establish the fingerprint profile of Tragia plukenetii R. Smith using high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) and Preliminary phytochemical screening. Preliminary phytochemical screening of the extract showed the presence of alkaloids, triterpenes, phenolic compounds and steroids. HPTLC finger printing of chloroform extract of leaf revealed 15 peaks with R_f values in the range of 0.11 to 1.0. It can be concluded that HPTLC fingerprint analysis of leaf extract of Tragia plukenetii can be used as a diagnostic tool for the correct identification of the plant and it is useful as a phytochemical marker and also a good estimator of genetic variability in plant populations.