Targeted enrichment of Glycyrrhiza glabra root extract and bioactive compound(s) quantification—A potential scaffold for phytopharmaceutical ingredient development

Abstract

Phytopharmaceutical Ingredients (PPI) are separate class of drugs, governing the purified fractions of medicinal plant part with minimum four bioactive compounds attributing pharmacological and therapeutic activities. In this context, we have conducted a research study on Glycyrrhiza glabra roots, to prepare its PPI monograph. The aforementioned plant has been pursued for its anti-diabetic potential, and on the basis of preliminary results, extract enrichment was done to detect and quantify four bioactive markers viz., liquiritin, glycyrrhizin, formononetin, and glabridin. The detection and quantification of the bioactive compounds was done by multiple high throughput techniques. We have successfully enriched the total content in the extract by 13.33% W/W, assayed by HPLC. The enriched extract consisted liquiritin and glycyrrhizin in highest content, i.e., 6.41% and 4.33% W/W respectively, followed by glabridin and formononetin by 2.25% and 0.34% W/W respectively. The quantification of liquiritin was performed by qNMR analysis, which was found relatable to that of HPLC assay, showing 6.19% liquiritin, 3.78% glycyrrhizin, 0.21% formononetin, and 1.98% glabridin in enriched extract. Conclusion: This study is a scaffold for upcoming PPI monograph designing and IP-PPIRS development of Glycyrrhiza glabra in upcoming Indian Pharmacopoeia.