Establishment of quality control protocols and antioxidant activity of Urtica dioica L.

Abstract

The present work establishes the pharmacognostic characters for the correct identification and quality control of Urtica dioica L., which is a species found commonly in the Himalayas. It is a folklore medicine, used for the treatment of many diseases. The pharmacognostic studies that were carried out included organoleptic, microscopy, physicochemical, fluorescence analysis, phytochemical evaluations, antioxidant and TLC fingerprinting. The microscopic studies showed the general characteristic of leaf. Physicochemical investigation performed for the total ash, acid insoluble ash, and water soluble ash showed the result 7.91±0.17%, 1.40±0.11% and 3.63±0.15% w/w, respectively. The alcohol and water soluble extractives values of the plant material were 18.53±0.42% w/w and 21.32±0.61% w/w, respectively. The phytochemical investigation revealed the presence of various phytochemical groups. The ethyl acetate extract of U. dioica has showed most significant free radical scavenging activity with IC50 of 82.56±0.11 µg/mL. The pharmacognostic characters of U. dioica established in this study may help in the pharmacopoeial standard for the identification and standardization.