647 ISSN 0326-2383 KEY WORDS: Ayurvedic formulation, Densitometry, Fingerprint, 6-Gingerol, HPTLC * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: shailendrasaraf@rediffmail.com Latin American Journal of Pharmacy (formerly Acta Farmacéutica Bonaerense) Lat. Am. J. Pharm. 30 (4): 647-53 (2011) Original Article Received: July 8, 2010 Revised version: September 2, 2010 Accepted:, September 5, 2010 TLC Densitometric Fingerprint Development and Validation of 6-Gingerol as Marker in Poly-Herbal Ayurvedic Formulations Shukla S. SHANKAR, Saraf SWARNLATA & Saraf SHAILENDRA* University Institute of Pharmacy, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India. PIN-492010 SUMMARY. The poly herbal formulations containing ginger are widely used for different medicinal prop- erties. The present paper deals with the development of densitometric method for fingerprint of ginger mainly using 6-gingerol in the form of densitogram following charring of the chromatographic as internal standard that could be useful for marker-based quality assurance of the poly herbal products containing Zingiber officinale. The fast rapid and reproducible method was developed. The accuracy of method was validated by analysis of spiked blank and standard addition samples and precision by performing repli- cate analyses on a single day and on different days. Recoveries from spiked blank and standard addition sample were 98.03-99.47 %. Repeatability for sample, each of which was analyzed six times on a single plate, was 0.001903 % relative standard deviation. The intra and inter precision was 0.001242 and 0.010676 % relative standard deviation for a sample analyzed in duplicate once per plate on same day and the different days over a seven-day period. The content of 6-Gingerol was found to be 0.698 ± 0.000577, 0.689 ± 0.002, 0.687 ± 0.001528 mg/g in lab formulations. The method was shown to be simple, precise and accurate suitable for routine analysis of 6-Gingerol at different levels from raw material to finished for- mulations. INTRODUCTION The Talisadi churna is a marketed Ayurvedic herbal formulation included in Ayurvedic formu- lary containing ginger as the main ingredient, which is one of the most popular ayurvedic medicines and possess many safe and effective drugs, useful in various disorders. The important therapeutic use of Talisadi churna are vomiting, flatulence with gurgling sound, cough, asthma, fever, anorexia, indigestion, diarrhoea, cachexia, splenic disease, malabsorption syndrome and anemia 1 . Talisadi churna (as per Ayurvedic for- mulary of India) mainly contains the mixture of powdered crude drugs of Abies webbiana, Piper nigrum, Zingiber officinale, Piper longum, Bom- busa bombos, Elettaria cardamomum, Cin- namomum zeylanicum and sugar. Ayurvedic pharmacy advocates the use of quality control tests to make sure that the pre- pared medicines adhere to the standards men- tioned in Ayurveda. Most of the tests described in ancient literature appear to be based on ob- servation and seem subjective without valid sci- entific backing. Hence, standardization and de- velopment of reliable quality protocols for Ayurvedic formulations using modern tech- niques of analysis is extremely important 2 . Ayurveda is a plant-based system of medicine and consist of various Ayurvedic formulations such as solid dosage forms (pills, churna), liquid dosage forms (asavas, aristhas) and semisolid dosage forms (ghritas, avlehas). A comprehen- sive and quantifiable identification method for fingerprint development; is able to reveal chem- ical information of herbal medicines with spec- trogram and other graph by analytical and chemical techniques 3 . An optimal strategy for HPTLC method de-