Phytochemical Analysis of Bioactive Components of Medicinal Plants

Abstract

In the past, natural substances and their structural analogs have made significant contributions to drug treatment. Several drugs come from plants, including antiepileptics, emetics, antibacterial drugs, diarrhea drugs, antioxidants, and anti-cancer drugs. Many herbs are said to have been used by indigenous people around the world for their therapeutic properties as well as being valuable in traditional medicine. The research focuses on assessment and characterization of different plant species and plant components for a range of ailments. The identification and evaluation of biologically active substances in plants has always been a difficult task. It is very important to improve qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques of medicinal plants for quality assessment in the herbal pharmaceutical industry. Many scientific and technological advances, such as sophisticated tools for deep analysis, genome extraction strategies, and advances in microbial culture, have addressed these challenges and opened up fresh opportunities.
Characterization, including phytochemical screening tests that provide information for the presence of secondary metabolites, is most significant phase in analysing bioactive chemicals contained in natural plant extracts. Chromatography techniques such as HPLC/HPTLC/GC-MS as well as FTIR Spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) are highly sophisticated techniques for determining the structure of the bioactive fraction lead. This review explains how to determine the most common bio active component both qualitatively as well as quantitatively using easy and reliable approaches.