Pharmaceutical Methods
Publishing Quality Research & Reviews
Pharmaceutical Methods
Publishing Quality Research & Reviews
Author(s): Sunita Shailajan, Sasikumar Menon, Gauri Swar, Dipti Singh and Sreenath Nair
Introduction: Acorus calamus Linn. (A. calamus) has been found use in medicines to cure fevers, asthma, bronchitis and as an all-round sedative. β-asarone is an important phytochemical compound present richly in the rhizomes of Acorus calamus that imparts several therapeutic properties to the plant by the virtue of which the plant has occupied a significant therapeutic acclaim in ancient Ayurvedic text and is employed as one of the key ingredients in several traditional and herbal formulations. Thus, the study aims to develop and validate an efficient Reverse Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography (RP-HPLC) method for quantification of β-asarone from rhizomes of A. calamus of the wild and marketed variety and also intends to apply the validated method for the estimation of the biomarker from different formulations containing the rhizome as one of its ingredients. Methods: Separation was carried out on Cosmosil C18 column eluted with mobile phase of methanol: distilled water (50:50, v/v) at flow rate of 1 mL/min. Detection was carried out at 304 nm using a photodiode array detector (PDA) and the method was validated as per International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines. Rhizome was collected from Kerala and also procured from the market. Commercial traditional and herbal formulations like Sarasvata Churna, Maanasmithra Vatakam, Khadiradi Gutika, Chandraprabha Bati, Sanjeevani Vati, Mahashankh Bati, Smritisagar Ras, Abana, Vacadi Taila, and Ashwagandharishtha were further subjected to RP-HPLC for separation and estimation of β-asarone. Results: The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitation (LOQ) levels were found to be 0.025 μg/mL and 0.1 μg/mL, respectively. The content of β-asarone was found to be maximum in the sample collected from Kerala which was 0.2946±0.0152 mg/g. Conclusion: The developed method can be recommended for marker-based standardization and quality assurance of A. calamus and its formulations.
