Estimation of Quercetin and Rutin Content in Hyouttunia cordata and Centella asiatica Plant Extracts Using UV-Spectrophotometer

Flavonoids are secondary plant metabolites normally found as pigmented compounds in plants. Quercetin and rutin are two important and commonly found flavonoids in nature and exhibit wide pharmacological effects such as antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, and hepatoprotective activities as well as antimicrobial activity. In this study, quercetin and rutin content is being quantified in the plant extracts of Centella asiatica and Houttuynia cordata and considerable amounts of these two flavonoids were depicted. A single beam UV – Spectrophotometer was used to measure the absorbance of the standard as well as test solutions. Calibration curves were constructed for standard quercetin and rutin in such a way that x-axis denotes concentration and the y-axis denotes the absorbance. The calibration curves showed linearity at concentrations 5-25 ?g /ml of quercetin and rutin respectively with a good correlation coefficient (r) of 0.99 for both the curves. The absorbance of the two test extracts was obtained from the calibration curve and respective concentrations of quercetin and rutin for the two extracts were calculated. The amount of quercetin and rutin present was expressed as Total Flavonoid Content (TFC) i.e. the amount of the flavonoid in ?g present per mg of the respective plant extract. The quercetin content in both the plant extracts was found to be more (315.8 in Houttuynia cordata; 487.6 in Centella asiatica) than the content of rutin (152.2 in Houttuynia cordata; 171.0 in Centella asiatica).