Determination of betulin in Grewia tiliaefolia by HPTLC

A sensitive, rapid, simple, and accurate high performance thin layer chromatographic method has been developed to standardize the bark of Grewia tiliaefolia Vahl. (Family: Tiliaceae) using betulin as an analytical marker. Chloroform extracts of bark from five different sources were used for HPTLC on silica gel with toluene-ethyl acetate, 90 + 10 v/v, as mobile phase. Under these conditions, the Rf of betulin was 0.22. The calibration plot was linear in the range of 1000 ng to 1800 ng of betulin and the correlation coefficient, 0.999, was indicative of good linear dependence of peak area on concentration. The mean assay of betulin was 2.596 +/- 0.594 mg g(-1) of bark. The method permits reliable quantification of betulin and good resolution and separation of betulin from other constituents of Grewia tiliaefolia. Recovery values from 96.09 to 98.87% showed that the reliability and reproducibility of the method were excellent. The proposed HPTLC method for quantitative monitoring of betulin in Grewia tiliaefolia can be used for routine quality testing.