International Journal of Therapeutic Applications, Volume 3, 2012, 1 - 6 1 APPLICATIONS OF ULTRA HIGH PRESSURE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY TO NATURAL PRODUCTS Shradhanjali Singh*, Anil Kumar Singh 1 *Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, United Institute of Pharmacy, A-31/1 UPSIDC, Industrial Area, Naini Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh-211010 1 Department of pharmaceutics, United Institute of Pharmacy, A-31/1 UPSIDC, Industrial Area, Naini Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh-211010 INTRODUCTION Plants have always a rich source of active compounds which needs to be isolated for the activity. Natural products contain the active compounds which are complex structures and need to be separated. The separation can be achieved by using a well diversified analytical technique. Several analytical techniques have been employed for the separation of natural compounds like Spectrophotometric methods, Gas chromatography, Supercritical fluid chromatography, Capillary electrophoresis, High performance liquid chromatography, Ultra High Pressure liquid Chromatography. Ultra High Pressure liquid Chromatography is a developing technique based on the principle of separating the compounds based on increasing the resolving power of the analytical separation process particularly with the development of columns packed with porous sub 2micron meter particles used in very high pressure conditions. In this technique the use of smaller particle size results in high plate numbers as well as faster separations. This can be shown in Equation-1 1 Since in the last eight years UHPLC technique is increasing widely for the separation as compared to HPLC technique because it eliminates complications resulting from use of larger samples volume, larger particle size, increased generated wastes and increased analysis time 2 . By comparing the intrinsic performance of such packing size with other intrinsic techniques such as monoliths, fused core technology or high temperature liquid chromatography with conventional particle size UHPLC with a maximum pressure of 1000bar is a very attractive strategy that ABSTRACT Nature has afforded a number of interesting chemicals to be used in medicine, cosmetics, agriculture and others. The success in the studies of complex extracts of natural products depends on the development of new analytical techniques for the analysis of extracts. In view of increased separation efficiency, improved resolution and faster analysis time, Liquid chromatography established a method involving smaller particle size (<2µm) and high pressure (> 350bar). With the introduction of Ultra-High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (UHPLC), in 2004 new opportunities are emerging in the pharmaceutical industry for obtaining rapid analytical separations without sacrificing high- quality results in terms of resolution, accuracy, and reliability. To ensure the accurate quantification of the selected marker compound in natural products hyphenated techniques includes UHPLC-MS, SFE-UHPLC and UHPLC-DAD- ESI-MS. The present review seeks a newly developed analytical method as Ultra High Pressure Liquid chromatography together with the hyphenated techniques and its applications to natural products. This technique is very versatile and powerful tool for the separation of natural product from crude extracts for selective detection and general profiling. The technique is precise, robust, faster and sensitive and relies upon smaller volumes of organic solvents than HPLC. The advantages of introducing UHPLC are a decrease in sample turnaround time for both manufacturing and product development, the use of less organic solvents, and a reduction in generated waste. Key words: UHPLC, natural product, hyphenated techniques, product development. *Corresponding author: Email: singhshradhanjali@gmail.com