HPTLC QUANTIFICATION OF n-OCTACOSANOL IN TINOSPORA CORDIFOLIA MIERS STEMS OBTAINED FROM DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS

n-octacosanol is an normolipidemic aliphatic primary alcohol obtained from the plant Tinospora cordifolia Miers. In the present study, the plant stems were collected from five accessions namely Anniyalam, Chennai, Hassan, Vishakhapatnam and Bangalore between June and August. Later a simple HPTLC method has been established for determination of n-octacosanol in methanolic extracts of all these geographical sources using Toluene: Ethyl acetate: Formic acid (4.5: 4.5: 1 v/v) as mobile phase. Detection and quantification were performed by densitometric scanning at lambda = 555 nm. The results of HPTLC estimation showed variation in n-octacosanol content in all the accessions. The extract from Anniyalam accession showed significantly higher amount of n-octacosanol (6.54%) and that of Vishakhapatnam showed the least (2.28%). Thus, the present work is helpful in selecting genotype of Tinospora cordifolia yielding highest percentage of n-octacosanol.