HPLC Coupled with Chemometric Analysis and LC-MS Studies of Three Flavonoids in Tephrosia purpurea (L.) Pers Revealed Impact of Chemodiversity on the Quest for the Chemical Markers.

Globally, Tephrosia purpurea (L.) Pers is used as an important component in herbal drug formulations for liver health. The present study is aimed to develop a suitable analytical approach for simultaneous analysis of three flavonoids (rutin, deguelin and rotenone) to establish quality control methods for plant. A novel High-performance liquid chromatography photodiode array detector (HPLC-PDA) method has been developed to quantify these flavonoids in T. purpurea. The method was validated, and data were subjected to chemometric analysis to select most optimal marker compound. The method that was found linear with R2 values ranges from 0.996 to 0.998 with good recoveries. Intra- and inter-day precision values were <2. HPLC analysis revealed high level of chemodiversity. Quantity of all the three chemical markers was found significantly disparate in samples from different locations. Deguelin was detectable only in three out of total eight samples. However, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis was found sufficiently sensitive to detect all the compounds in all samples. Thus, results suggest to apply combination of approaches to enhance confidence in chromatographic methods for quality control of herbal drugs. Principal component analysis ranked the markers as Rutin>Rotenone>Deguelin. This comprehensive approach employing multichromatography platforms can be successfully utilized in analysis of these bioactive markers and routine standardization of herbal material and formulations containing T. purpurea.

Investigation on apposite chemical marker for quality control of Tephrosia purpurea (L.) Pers. by means of HPTLC-chemometric analysis.

Application of phytochemicals as the markers for quality assurance of the herbal medicinal material is one of the prominently used approach. In the present study, six major chemical compounds i.e. rutin, quercetin, lupeol, ß-sitosterol, rotenone, deguelin of therapeutically important plant Tephrosia purpurea were tested for their significance to be used as chemical markers in analytical methods. Plants were collected from different locations. Extraction procedures as well as HPTLC analytical methods have been optimized for each compound. All these methods have been validated in terms of linearity, intraday-interday precision, LOD, LOQ, accuracy and repeatability. Metabolites have been quantified and quantitative data has been subjected to chemometric analysis. Results revealed that Rf values of all the compounds are between 0.3 and 0.4. Rutin, lupeol and ß-sitosterol gave desirable response and other three compounds were found undetectable in HPTLC. Content of rutin, beta-sitosterol and lupeol ranged from 0.095 to 0.84, 0.043 to 0.125, 0.023 to 0.045 w/w % respectively. Among them, rutin content was highest in all samples. Quantitative measurements combined with chemometric analysis displayed chemodiversity in the samples. In addition, principal component analysis ranked the marker as in order of their significance rutin > ß-sitosterol > lupeol. Results indicate rutin to be most preferable chemical marker for the Tephrosia. Furthermore, application of all the three compounds combined as the multimarker system should be preferred for standardization of T. purpurea.