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Present paper describes the application of a recently developed method for the determination of six nucleobases (thymine, uracil, adenine, cytosine, guanine and guanosine), by high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) in Ganoderma lucidum (GL) and Cordyceps sinensis (CS) - two mushrooms that have been widely revered in traditional Chinese medicines. The method used a simple mobile phase constituted of dicholoromethane-methanol-formic acid (8:2.25:0.8, v/v/v). Validation of the method according to USP guidelines proved the method to be accurate (97.1-99.9%) and precise (1.8-5.2% RSD). Results confirmed the abundance of nucleobases in various extracts of GL and CS wherein the aqueous extracts of GL and ethanolic extracts of CS were found to have the maximum nucleobase content. Identification of nucleobases in the samples was reconfirmed by hyphenated HPTLC-MS technique. HPTLC data were further processed by chemometric tools like heat maps, cluster dendrograms and principal component analysis for drawing relatability patterns among the samples. Since both GL and CS are well known for their therapeutic applications, nucleobase profiling in these medicinal mushrooms will provide an essential lead in establishing their use in the development of drug formulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to establish a high-performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC)-based comparative analysis, directed toward characterization of nucleobases in aqueous and alcoholic extracts of sea buckthorn leaves from three different varieties:Hippophae salicifolia, Hippophae rhamnoides mongolica, andHippophae rhamnoides turkestanica. The alcoholic and aqueous leaf extracts from these sea buckthorn varieties were prepared using accelerated solvent extraction technique. A novel HPTLC method for separating and identifying six nucleobases, namely, guanosine, guanine, cytosine, adenine, uracil, and thymine were adopted. HPTLC analysis indicated the presence of one or more of these nucleobases in a total of six leaf extracts evaluated, their quantities varying from 0.23 to 7.76 µg nucleobase per mg of extract. Though a typical trend could not be observed in the values obtained, the extracts were found to be considerably rich with respect to nucleobase contents. The results acquired from HPTLC were subsequently validated by hyphenation with mass spectrometry and also by applying chemometric tools in form of heat maps, hierarchical cluster dendrograms, and principal component analysis. The presence of nucleobases in the leaf extracts was confirmed by HPLC as well but HPTLC proved to be a better approach for characterization of nucleobases in plant extracts, than high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]