Abstract

Murraya koenigii L. Spreng, a medicinally important herb of Indian origin, has been used for centuries in the Ayurvedic system of traditional Indian medicine and popularly used in Indian cuisine on a daily basis. To evaluate the quality of M. koenigii, L. leaves, a sensitive, simple and precise reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method was developed for assessment of four major bioactive flavonoids: rutin, quercetin, myricetin and kaempferol. Separation was achieved on a reversed phase column (ZORBAX, Eclipse plus-C₁₈, 5 μm, 4.6 × 150 mm, Agilent, USA) and methanol:acetonitrile:water:acetic acid (40:20:39:1, v/v/v/v) was employed as the eluent. Sample was eluted at 0.8 ml/min and peaks were simultaneously identified using UV absorbance at 350 nm for kaempferol and 254 nm for rutin, myrcetin, and quercetin. The authenticated four analytes were used to construct linear standard curves by injecting range of 20 to 200 ng. The correlation coefficients of the calibration curve for the analytes existed higher than 0.999. Isolation of four compounds in M. koenigii, leaves was achieved by the RP-HPLC method and the results showed that mean value of rutin (924.25 mg/kg) and quercetin (85.88 mg/kg) accumulated greater concentration. Lowest flavonoid concentration 5.88 and 0.20 mg/kg were found to possess in myricetin and kaempferol, respectively. Total flavonoids concentration was observed to be 1415.50 mg/kg. This study suggested that accumulation of the greater amount of bioactive components: rutin and quercetin in M. koenigii leaves will be more useful information for further pharmacological investigations.

Key words:  Flavonols, polyphenol, rutin, Murraya koenigii, reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC).

Abbreviation

BHT, Butylated hydroxytoluene; BHA, butylated hydroxyanisole; DAD, diode array detector; RP-HPLC, reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography.