HPTLC Based Chemometrics of Medicinal Mushrooms

Abstract

The current study presents application of chemometrics to high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) fingerprints of Indian medicinal mushrooms, Cordyceps sinensis (CS) and Ganoderma lucidum (GL). These mushrooms possess numerous bio-active constituents that endow them with several medicinal properties. Five CS extracts using different compositions of water and ethanol and nine sequentially extracted GL extracts were prepared employing the accelerated solvent extraction technique. A rapid and convenient HPTLC method was developed for generating phytochemical profiles and simultaneous detection of antioxidant compounds: ascorbic acid, hesperidin, gallic acid, rutin, and quercetin. The presence of these known and some of selective unknown zones visualized at 254 nm or 366 nm were confirmed by HPTLC–ESI/MS (HPTLC–Electronspray Ionization/Mass Spectrometry). The most probable m/z value of selective unknown HPTLC zones was searched against public databases to find putative compounds. Chemometric methods such as cluster analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed on HPTLC datasets acquired during HPTLC scanning at 254 nm and 366 nm. Data matrices consisting of maximum peak heights of HPTLC zones at a specific Rf (retention factor) values were used as input variables. Also, the quantitative patterns of metabolites across the extracts were represented using HeatMap. This study illustrated HPTLC assisted chemometric analysis of Cordyceps sinensis and Ganoderma lucidum.