A validated spectro densitometric regulatory compliant USP-HP-TLC protocol for quantification of polyphenols and antioxidants from polyherbal formulations containing Terminalia species

[Display omitted] •Herbal formulations are rich source of antioxidants, flavonoids, terpenoids, phenols which serves as immune boosters in natural form.•Standardization of botanicals ensures qualitative and quantitative values enablingassuranceofquality, efficacy, safety and reproducibility.•The validation of herbal products is a major public health concern as well as biggest challenge for quality control of herbal medicines.•HPTLC is mostpreferredanalyticaltoolfor comprehensive quality control of herbalsduetoitsglobal regulatory compliance and acceptance. The phytochemical profiles of ethno-medicinal plants from Southern Asia have been extensively studied, due to their wide utilization in various traditional systems of India, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and China. Terminalia bellirica (Gaertn.) Roxb. and Terminalia chebula Retz. are the two most important and widely utilized medicinal plants across the traditional system in India. The herbal products comprising the fruits of these two plants, example Triphala, Vyoshadi-Gulgulu Gulika and also marketed Ayurvedic products like Pilonil Tablet are proven to have high medicinal value and biotherapeutic efficacy. The current study is an effort to develop highly precise, sensitive and reproducible HP-TLC protocol for the standardization herbal preparations comprising of hydro-alcoholic extract of selected Terminalia species as their major ingredients. The selected herbal products were assessed through HP-TLC for quantifying gallic acid and quercetin, followed by their visualization using DPPH*, Anisaldehyde and Vanillin as derivatizing reagent. The USP official protocol was followed for the method development using digitally optimized HP-TLC system. The results demonstrated good sensitivity and regression value of 99.999% for proposed method with optimized chromatographic analysis. The developed protocol was validated in accordance with ICH guidelines and all the parameters were found to be within the specified limits. Thus, the proposed HP-TLC method would surely serve as a classical tool for analysis and standardization of Terminalia species and their traditional products.