HPTLC method for the quantification of ellagic acid in different Eucalyptus species

Abstract

Ellagic acid is a naturally occurring anticancer plant product.  Eucalyptus species is a rich source of ellagic acid. It possesses many important biological activities such as anticancer, hepatoprotective and DNA-gyrase inhibitor. This necessitates us to develop a suitable analytical procedure for its quantitative determination in eucalyptus species. A simple, sensitive and rapid HPTLC quantitative method of analysis has been developed and validated for ellagic acid. The quantity of ellagic acid in the curde extracts, obtained from the five common species of eucalyptus namely E. globules Labill, E.citriodora Hook, E. eugenioides Seiber Ex Spreng, E. ficifolia F. Muell and E. pulverulenta Sims has been determined. The collected leaves, bark and stem were extracted with hot ethanol using soxhlet extractor. The ethanolic extract was spotted on polyamide F ₂₅₄ TLC plates. The plates were developed using a mixture of ethyl acetate: formic acid: water (17: 2: 3 v/v) as the mobile phase. The proposed HPTLC method was validated as per ICH guidelines for its accuracy, precision, linearity, (regression equation is y=7659x +317.4; R² = 0.9997), specificity and peak purity. The optimized method would be useful for both qualitative and quantitative routine analysis of ellagic acid in pharmaceutical industries, and research laboratories.