Chemical Fingerprints of an Indian Traditional Herbal Drug Talisapatra (Abies webbiana) and Comparison with English yew (Taxus baccata)

Abstract

Present work was carried out with a view to develop chemical fingerprints to differentiate the herbal drugs Taxus baccata L. and Abies webbiana (Wall ex D. Don) Lindl. Both the plants are commonly called as Talisapatra in India and having different medicinal applications. T. baccata is native to Europe and A. webbiana is found in India and also used in traditional medicine. Dried leaves of both the plant are morphologically similar and in powdered form it is very difficult to differentiate them and hence there are chances for adulteration and also misuse of the herbs. In this project phytochemical, spectroscopic (UV-Visible, FT-IR and NMR) and chromatographic techniques (HPTLC and HPLC) were applied to obtain the chemical fingerprints of selected herbs. A. webbiana contained higher level of total phenolic compounds (6301.27 mg GAE / 100 g) when compared to T. baccata (977.45 mg GAE / 100 g). UV-Visible absorbance at 577 and 663 nm are unique for T. baccata. FT-IR peaks at 3403, 1030 and 577 cm-1 were unique for T. baccata while A. webbiana exhibited unique peak at 3371, 1059 and 613 cm-1 . NMR signals revealed remarkable difference between chloroform extracts of T. baccata from A. webbiana. HPTLC profile exhibited unique bands with Rf value of 0.11, 0.25, 0.62, 0.68, 0.91 and 097 for T. baccata and A. webbiana exhibited unique spots with Rf value of 0.05, 0.27, 0.38, 0.44, 0.65, 0.72 and 0.93. Unique HPLC peaks for T. baccata were 2.07, 2.28, 4.86, 5.08, 5.97 and 6.86 min whereas A. webbiana revealed unique peaks at 1.90, 2.00 International Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemical Researchand 4.52 min. Chemical fingerprint results obtained from the present work would be useful in differentiating T. baccata from A. webbiana.

Pitfalls and promises of raw drug identification techniques in the ayurvedic industry: an overview

“…HPLC is another automatable technique with high rate of precision, resolution, sensitivity and selectivity. Several studies including authentication of Indian species Talisapatra with English yew (Taxus baccata), chromatographic profiling of Woodfordia fruticosa and Tabernaemontana catharinensis, active metabolites of Annona muricata, quantitative analysis of phenolic acids, flavonoids and ascorbic acid of wild edible leaves are some of the studies performed with HPLC (Boligon et al 2015;Seal 2016;Syed and Khan 2016;Vadivel et al 2018). In addition, presence and quantification of toxic chemicals from plant species such as aristolochic acids in Aristolochia, norditerpenoid alkaloids in Delphinium spp, and identification of five hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids in traditional Chinese medicinal herb, Herba senecionis var.…”

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“…It is used as a qualitative and quantitative measure for monitoring the quality of the herbal drug. In some cases, we cannot identify drugs through classical microscopy and macroscopy like in the case of Talispatra (Abies webbiana) which is adulterated/ substituted with English yew (Taxus baccata) 16 . In such cases, fingerprinting analysis overcome these difficulties.…”

Abies webbiana Ethanolic Extract Based Mouthwash and Its Antimicrobial and Cytotoxic Effect

“…It has been noted that nature has been a source of remedies for many years. The plant Abies webbiana comes from the family Pinaceae which are known to possess large quantities of phytochemicals [9]. These constituents were found to possess certain properties that are of therapeutic use such as antibacterial, mast cell stabilising, anti-inflammatory, antitussive and as a CNS depressant [4,7,[10][11][12].…”

“…Abies have been regarded to have anti tumours, antimicrobial, anti ulcer, anti inflammatory and dental nervous system activities, while it has been considered as an antioxidant due to its chemical constituents contents, despite a long tradition of used in neurological disorders, no systemic pharmacological work has ever been carried out on Abbies webbiana to validate its traditional claims [24]. Therefore it was considered worthwhile to evaluate ethanol extract and fraction of Abies webbiana parts for various neuropharmacologist activities [25]. The need for this study is that there isn't a herbal formulation that assesses the cytotoxic properties of Abies webbiana and determines whether it is within normal limits.…”