Studies on extraction, isolation and estimation of psoralen from the fruits of Psoralea corylifolia

Psoralen was isolated by column chromatography from the methanol extract from Psoralea corylifolia seeds. The chemical structure of the compound was established by spectroscopic methods. To analyze bulk drug and formulations, a simple, selective, and precise high performance thin layer chromatographic method was developed and validated. The proposed method employed HPTLC aluminum plates pre-coated with silica gel 60F-254 as the stationary phase. The plates were developed with benzene: chloroform: ethyl acetate (80:10:10 v/v) as mobile phase, this system was found to give compact spots for psoralen (Rf value of (0.61 + 0.02). Regression analysis from densitometric analysis at 254 nm showed linear correlation between peak height and peak area (r = 0.9994 and 0.9998, respectively) in the concentration range from 50-250 ng/µL. The method was validated for precision, recovery and robustness. The limits of detection and quantitation were 25 ng/µL and 50 ng/µL respectively. Statistical analysis proves that the method is repeatable, selective and accurate for the estimation of psoralen.