Physicochemical Study, Chemical Profiling and Molecular Docking Study for Standardisation of the Homoeopathic Drug Damiana

Abstract

Introduction Damiana has been used as aphrodisiac in ethnomedicine for centuries. However, the use of Damiana in homeopathy is diverse, e.g. for migraine treatment of, amenorrhoea, spermatorrhoea, urinary tract infection and prostate related issues. However, this medicinal plant is non-native to India. Hence, it is imperative to investigate the quality of the medicine samples available and prepared in India. Hence, we undertook in-depth chemical analysis of the raw drugs and the commercially available samples of this medicine. Material and Methods The reported chemical study includes determination of the physicochemical parameters of the raw drug involving, foreign matter, loss on drying, extractive values in different solvents, ash values total fixed oil and total volatile oil. Also, the study includes the analysis of the in-house and commercial mother tinctures consisting of, pH, organoleptic parameters, total solids, total phenol content, ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy and high performance thin layer chromatography. Phytochemical screening of the mother tinctures and extracts of the raw drugs in different solvents was done. A preliminary molecular docking study was done to evaluate the applicability of apigenin as the homoeopathy-specific marker. Result In-house mother tincture, mother tinctures from Indian and multinational companies show similar quality. Molecular docking revealed that apigenin may be a good candidate for homoeopathy-specific marker. Conclusion Our study provides pharmacopoeial standards which show that even for exotic plants the quality of mother tinctures from Indian and international companies is similar.