Chemical Fingerprints of Medicinal Plants - HPTLC Profiling

This chapter discusses chromatography, classification of chromatography, thin layer chromatography (TLC) and how high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) is an advanced version of TLC. In brief, this chapter also discusses the advantages and the areas where the HPTLC technique can be used. 

HPTLC is one type of planar chromatography and the most advanced form of instrumental TLC. HPTLC equipment involves an autosampler for the application of a specific amount of sample on the plate, after spotting of sample the plate is developed in a TLC development chamber after development the plate is dried and visualized using visualizer. This chapter briefly discusses the equipment involved in the development of TLC. 

This chapter briefly discusses the general aspects that can affect the result of TLC. Sample preparation, application of samples, preparation of development solvents, the steps involved in the development of TLC, visualization and derivatization, and detection of analyte are the key steps of chromatographic development. This chapter focuses on the process steps for HPTLC analysis.

As discussed in the first chapter, Chromatography is a separation technique based on the different affinities of the components in a mixture of two immiscible phases. One phase does not move (stationary phase) and the other moves through it in a definite direction (mobile phase). This chapter discusses the adsorbent or stationary phase used in TLC and the properties of these materials. 

Hyphenation techniques are those where two different analytical techniques are combined together to give synergy. The advantage includes high separation efficiency, and the detection of compounds with high sensitivity and specificity. HPTLC can be combined with liquid chromatography (LC), infrared (IR) spectroscopy, ultra violate (UV) spectroscopy, and mass spectroscopy (MS). This chapter briefly discusses the hyphenation of HPTLC with other analytical techniques, its uses, advantages and areas of application of HPTLC coupled with other analytical techniques.

Medicinal plants are considered a rich source of phytochemicals, which can be used in drug development. For this purpose, the selection of correctly identified herbs is of significance as each herb has a unique phytochemical distribution pattern. High-Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) is one of the simplest yet robust techniques for the identification of herbs, as it can provide unique phytochemical fingerprints for each herb. However, process parameters of generating HPTLC fingerprints require rigorous optimization for each plant. This chapter provides HPTLC fingerprints for 108 medicinal plants together with their botanical name and common Hindi names. Besides providing optimized HPTLC conditions for generating these unique 108 fingerprints, this book also offers a list of solvent systems and derivatizing reagents for screening of phytochemicals. With classical taxonomical features and HPTLC fingerprinting methodology compiled, this chapter aims to serve as a guide for the identity verification of medicinal plants.