Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Roots or storon of Glycyrrhizia glabra L. commonlly called licorice, which is used for over 2000 years, mainly as a sweetening agent and a drug. Licorice known to contain the pentacyclic triterpene saponin glycyrrhizinic acid, which belong to the b-amyrin series. Licorice is presently recognized for its sweet tast and pronounced to be effective as an anti – inflammatory, anti-allergenic and anti-ulcer agent. Most of licorice determination methods of glycyrrhizin in the roots are non-specific and relying on indirect methods. The results obtained from these methods are usually unreal and unreliable. In this research glycyrrhizin in plants was estimated directly by High Performance Liquid Chromatography without hydrolysing glycyrrhizin to its aglycone. All sample collected from Iranian National Botanical Garden, then after extraction, component identified with compare standard. Hence the existing problems that considerably change results are eliminated. In this method, glycyrrhizin was separated from other components of total extract using reverse phase HPLC and the results of determinations have been satisfactory and reproducible.
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