PHARMACOGNOSTIC SPECIFICATION AND VASICINE CONTENT OF ADHATODA VASICA LEAVES

Abstract

Adhatoda vasica Nees or Malabar nut tree is a shrub which in Acanthaceae family. A. vasica is a famous herb that used for a long time mostly in Thai’s remedies. A. vasica leaves are used to treat fever and cough. For the good quality of herbal drugs, standardization is needed to be done. Leaf sample was collected from 12 different sources throughout Thailand. Whole plant of A. vasica was drawn by hand writing. In the microscopic method, A. vasica leaves powder and the cross section of mid rib was found calcium carbonate. Palisade ratio was 6.57 ± 0.56 whilst stomata number, stomata index, trichome number, trichome index and calcium carbonate number were 288.27 ± 3.70, 17.84 ± 0.83, 28.53 ± 7.63, 2.45 ± 0.53 and 36.50 ± 9.20, respectively. Physico-chemical method was shown that water content, loss on drying, total ash and acid insoluble ash were not more than 11, 9, 21 and 6 % by weight while ethanolic extract and water extract were not less than 4 and 22 % by weight. Thin layer chromatographic fingerprint of A. vasica leaf was performed using chloroform and methanol (9 : 1) as mobile phase and the developed TLC was photographed at 254 nm, 365 nm and strain with Dragendorff’s reagent. TLC quantitative analyses of samples using toluene : ethylacetate : diethylamine (5 : 2 : 3) as a mobile phase and analyzed by TLC-densitometry (CAMAG TLC scanner and winCATS) and TLC image analysis (ImageJ software). The calibration range were polynomial (1 – 5 µg/spot) and had R2 0.9998 and 0.9988, precision of method was in the range of 1.30 – 3.96 and 6.29 – 10.45, accuracy was 83.60 ± 1.09 and 85.32 ± 5.42, LOD and LOQ were 0.188, 0.067 and 0.570, 0.202 µg/spot and robustness of the method was 4.48 and 11.12 %, respectively. The total of vasicine in A. vasica leaves using TLC-densitometry and TLC image analysis was 0.130 ± 0.065 and 0.134 ± 0.061 g/100g of dried crude drug. The comparison of the total vasicine in both methods was not significant different (t = 1.796, P = 0.249). This study could be used for the standardization parameter of A. vasica leaves in Thailand and the development of this herbal drug species.