ABSTRACT

Colchicine is an alkaloid which has been reported to possess anti-gout, anti-rheumatic, antiparasitic and anticancer potential. It is a toxic natural product obtained from plants of the genus Colchicum (C. autumnale and C. luteum), Gloriosa superba, and Iphigenia indica. In the present study, three different methods (percolation, sonication, and Soxhlation) of the extraction for colchicine from three different plants (C. luteum, G.superba, and I. indica) have been studied.The concentration of colchicine in different prepared extracts was quantified using high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) and high-performance thin-layer chromatographic (HPTLC) methods. The developed and optimized chromatographic method was validated according to the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines for linearity, precision, accuracy, specificity, sensitivity, recovery and robustness. The developed methods (HPLC and HPTLC) were applied for the comparative quantitative estimation of colchicine in three different plant extracts. Both the methods were found to be simple, selective and accurate with a wide range of linearity, hence useful for the quantification of colchicine content in different formulations containing colchicine-bearing plant extracts. Due to its toxic nature, the quantification of colchicine will play an important role in quality control of several herbal and unani formulations containing colchicine-bearing plant extracts. The present studies clearly indicate that both G. superba and C. luteum contain about 0.2 %w/w of colchicine.