Quantification of Picroside‐I and Picroside‐II in Picrorhiza kurroa by HPTLC

A new high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) method for the simultaneous quantification of picroside‐I and picroside‐II in P. kurroa is described. Separation of picroside‐I and picroside‐II was achieved by mobile phase of CHCl3:MeOH (82:18, v/v) on precoated silica gel 60 F254 aluminum plate. The densitometric determination of picrosides was carried out at 290 nm, in absorption‐reflection mode. The calibration curves were linear in the range of (2–5 µg). The method is simple, specific, rapid, and reliable for simultaneous determination of P‐I and P‐II in P. kurroa. The proposed method was applied for accurate quantification of large number of samples collected from different altitudes of western Himalaya.