Abstract

PHYTO ACTIVE COMPOUNDS FROM HERBAL PLANT EXTRACTS: ITS EXTRACTION, ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION

Akshada Amit Koparde*, Dr. C. S. Magdum and Dr. R. C. Doijad

Abstract

Herbal extracts its pure compounds provide opportunities for new drug discovery. Herbal Plants are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry for herbal drug development due to their structural diversity and presence of various pharmacological activities. The biological active compounds that are present in plants referred as phytochemicals. These phytochemicals derived from different parts of plants and thereby used as sources of lead molecules. The secondary metabolic compounds present in the plants describes the phytochemistry. Naturally occurring chemical compounds are present in plants and contains structurally diverse bioactive molecules. This review article highlights on the analytical methodologies which include the extraction, isolation and characterization of active ingredients from herbal plants. Different techniques of extraction are explained as extraction is the most important first step towards analysis of active constituents. This paper also highlights the isolation of active molecules by chromatographic techniques like TLC, column etc. The most important step towards analysis of bioactive compounds present in the plant extracts is characterization which includes phytochemical screening assays, HPLC(High Performance Liquid Chromatography), HPTLC (High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography), FTIR Fourier Transform Infra-Red spectroscopy (FTIR), NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), GCMS (Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry) through which lead molecule structure identification can be done .Thus key challenges in research related to herbal drug development is discussed in this paper.

Keywords: Herbal extracts, Phytochemicals, Extraction, Chromatographic techniques, Herbal drug development.