Characterization of commercial kava-kava herbal drug and herbal drug preparations by means of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
The efficiency of one- and two-dimensional NMR experiments in characterizing the content of the constituents of both herbal drugs and herbal drug preparations is demonstrated for kava-kava. These experiments directly detect active constituents represented by kavalactones in both a finely powdered herbal drug and a commercial extract. In addition, NMR spectroscopy can detect all other compounds present in the extract. As previously evidenced, NMR experiments can represent a generally applicable technique for rapid screening and are a complement to the classical analytical techniques such as high-performance thin-layer chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, capillary gas chromatography, and electrophoresis. These experiments can be considered a very simple and fast analytical method to obtain a fingerprint of the herbal drugs and their preparations, and to quantify the content of the active principles of the extract.
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Florence, via Gino Capponi 9, Italy. ar.bilia@unifi.it
Anna Rita
AR
Bilia
Maria Camilla
MC
Bergonzi
Diamanto
D
Lazari
Franco Francesco
FF
Vincieri
D020901:Kava / Q000737:chemistry*; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000737:chemistry*; D028321:Plant Preparations / Q000737:chemistry*
D010936:Plant Extracts; D028321:Plant Preparations