Development of chemo-genetic fingerprints and pharmacological evaluation of Lannea coromandelica Linn.

Correct identification of medicinal plants by phytochemical and genetic fingerprints is a fast growing tool to ensure reproducible medicinal quality of herbal drugs. Due to advances in molecular biology techniques, copious highly informative DNA-based methods have been developed for the identification of medicinal plants. In our current study, HPTLC and Restricted Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) techniques were employed to develop fingerprinting of Lannea coromandelica (L. coromandelica) and filariciadal activity of ethyl acetate extract was assessed by motility inhibition and MTT reduction assay with concentrations range 1000 to 25 µg/ml. The HPTLC analysis of ethyl acetate extract was carried out using hexane: ethyl acetate: formic acid: methanol (5:4:1:0.5 v/v/v/v) for fingerprinting and quantification of ellagic acid and quercetin. The HPTLC method was found to give compact spots for R_f= 0.54, ellagic acid; R_f= 0.91, quercetin. The HPTLC method was validated as per the International Conference on Harmonization guidelines. A polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis of the matK gene was developed to discriminate L. coromandelica from others. Only the 578-bp PCR product from L. coromandelica could be digested with restricted enzyme (SsspI) into two fragments of 364 and 214-bp. Inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) for the plant extract was found to be 284.5 µg/ml. In the motility assay, complete inhibition of motility was observed for all concentrations. Hence, our study could be valuable for inventing strategies for quality control parameter and primary screening of new potential filaricides of L. coromandelica.