HPTLC Fingerprint in Herbal Drug Formulations

Abstract

High-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) is a powerful analytical technique which is wonderfully suitable for qualitative and quantitative analytical tasks. HPTLC plays an important role in today’s analytical world, not in competition to HLPC but as a complementary method. Fingerprint analysis approach using HPTLC has become the most potent technique for quality control of herbal medicines because of its simplicity, flexibility and reliability. It can serve as a tool for identification, authentication and quality control of herbal medicines. The development of chromatographic fingerprints plays an important role in the quality control of complex herbal medicines. Phytochemical evaluation is one of the tools for the quality assessment, which include preliminary phytochemical screening, chemo profiling and marker compound analysis using modern analytical techniques. High-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) has emerged as an important tool for the qualitative, semi-quantitative and quantitative phytochemical analysis of the herbal drugs and formulations which includes developing TLC fingerprinting profiles and estimation of biomarkers. In this chapter, attempts will be made to expand the use of HPTLC and at the same time create interest among prospective researchers in herbal analysis and to focus on the theoretical background of HPTLC and few examples of herbal drugs and formulations analysed by various researchers using HPTLC method.