Rapid simultaneous determination of marmelosin, umbelliferone and scopoletin from Aegle marmelos fruit by RP-HPLC.

The surge of interest in naturally occurring phytochemicals with high therapeutic potential has led to the discovery of many molecules, out of which naturally occuring coumarins such as marmelosin, umbelliferone and scopoletin present in Aegle marmelos (Bael) fruit shows good therapeutic potential. The aim of the present work is to develop and validate Reverse Phase-High Performance Liquid Chromatography (RP-HPLC) method for simultaneous determination of marmelosin, umbelliferone and scopoletin in A. marmelos fruit extracts. The chromatographic separation was performed with isocratic elution of 55:45 (%, v/v) methanol-water containing 0.1 % acetic acid as mobile phase. The method used to analyse the extract of A. marmelos showed good resolution with retention time within 12 min. The relative concentrations of above phytoconstituent were determined in A. marmelos fruits. The method was found to give compact peaks for scopoletin, umbelliferone and marmelosin (Rt of 4.6, 6.5 and 11.3 min respectively) and were linear over the range 5-30 μg ml(-1) (R(2) = 0.9655), 2-10 μg ml(-1) (R(2) = 0.9964) and 2-10 μg ml(-1) (R(2) = 0.9862) respectively. The mean recoveries for marmelosin, umbelliferone and scopoletin at three concentrations were in the range of 98.8-102.9, 98.8-101.1 and 94.2-98.3 % respectively. The relative standard deviation of accuracy, precision and repeatability were within 2 %, indicating the method produced highly reproducible results. Therefore this simple, precise and accurate method enables simultaneous separation of this phytoconstituent and hence can be successfully applied in analysis and routine quality control of herbal material and formulation containing A. marmelos.