Simple, Rapid and Precise Method for Quality Assessment of Different Parts of Aegle marmelos L. Used in Indian System of Medicine

Aegle marmelos (L.) Corr. Serr, family Rutaceae is an important medicinal plant and immensely used in the Indian System of Medicine to cure human diseases. Plant parts like ischolar_main, stem bark and fruit have been reported for various medicinal properties such as anti-diabetic, anticancer, anti bacterial, anti fungal, anti pyretic, analgesic, antioxidant, cardio protective, radio protective, anti-diarrheal, anti-dysentery, anti-ulcer, wound healing and many more. A. marmelos is commonly known as a bael in India. Chemo-profiling screening on different parts of A. marmelos plants revealed variations in phytochemicals within different parts of plant. The unique properties of the chromatographic fingerprint were validated by analyzing ischolar_main, stem bark and fruit of A. marmelos. Our results revealed that the chromatographic fingerprint combined with similarity measurement could efficiently identify and distinguish A. marmelos from the other investigated Aegle species. In this paper a new, simple method is proposed in which the TLC pattern of the extracts of ischolar_main, stem bark and fruit of A. marmelos content is used for effective and reliable quality control of the drug. The method can also be used for identification of different A. marmelos species. The proposed method uses cold-extraction then clean-up by solid-phase extraction before chromatographic analysis. The results revealed that the retention factor (R_f) of A. marmelos stem bark, ischolar_main and fruit furnishes a specific TLC chromatogram fingerprint which might be helpful for quality assurance and detection of adulteration of crude extracts. The ischolar_main, stem bark and fruit of A. marmelos L. were also physico-chemically standardized as per WHO specification.