T. Rama Rao

Ferulic acid (FA), a common plant compound, has been of great interest in recent years because of its multifaceted pharmacological activities. In this review, the pharmacological activity of ferulic acid has been thoroughly explored, encompassing its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, anticancer, neuroprotective, hepatoprotective, and cardioprotective, anti-diabetic, and photoprotective effects. The molecular mechanisms of these activities have been elaborately discussed, along with possible therapeutic potentials in different disease conditions. Recent developments in drug delivery systems to improve FA bioavailability and clinical trials assessing its efficacy are also discussed. Although with encouraging preclinical results, hurdles are still present in extensing these observations to clinical use, and additional research is required to maximally exploit the therapeutic potential of this strategic phytochemical.

The excess use of drugs for various ailments is resulting in increasing cases of drug-induced nephrotoxicity. Acute kidney injury is the most common type of drug-induced nephrotoxicity, which accounts for 85% of cases of nephrotoxicity. Herbal medications, due to the presence of various phytoconstituents, possess nephroprotective activity and are used in the treatment of kidney disorders like acute kidney injury, nephrotic syndrome, chronic interstitial nephritis, etc. The present review aimed to elucidate the list of medicinal plants which are scientifically proven to have nephroprotective activity against drug-induced nephrotoxicity. 

A simple, rapid, sensitive, reversed phase-HPLC method was developed and validated to measure simultaneously the amount of Metformin and Vildagliptin at single wavelength (210 nm) in order to assess quantification in its tablet formulation and its subsequent stability studies. An isocratic elution of filtered sample was performed on Hypercil BDS C18 column with buffered mobile phase (0.1 M potassium dihydrogen ortho Phosphate buffer (Ph 4.8) and acetonitrile in the ratio of 60:40 v/v) with Hypercil BDS detection at 210 nm. The linearity for concentrations between 12.5μg/ml–75μg/ml for Metformin and 1.25μg/ml – 7.5μg/ml for Vildagliptin were established.  The limits of detection (LOD) and quantification were 1.75 and 5.29 µg/ml for metformin and 0.46 and 1.39 µg/ml for vildagliptin. The determination of the two active ingredients was not interfered by the excipients of the products. This method was satisfactorily applied to the analysis of the tablet formulations and proved to be specific and accurate for the quality control of the cited drugs in tablet dosage form.

A specific, rapid, reliable and precise reversed phase ultra-performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed and validated for the simultaneous estimation of aspirin, clopidogrel and atorvastatin in tablet dosage form. Chromatography was carried out on a 100 × 2.1 mm i.d., 1.7 µm C18 column with gradient flow programming mobile phase The mobile phase is a mixture of two solutions mobile phase A and mobile phase B in the ratio of 30:70. The mobile phase – A, contains buffer and methanol in the ratio of 93:7, the buffer used is 2.76 gms of Sodium phosphate in 100 ml. The mobile phase – B, contains 0.1% orthophosphoric acid and acetonitrile (60:40, v/v), at a flowrate of 0.5 mL/min. The detection was carried out by PDA detector. The retention times were about 0.55, 0.98 and 2.75 min for Aspirin, Clopidogrel and Atorvastatin, respectively. The runtime was 5 mins. The method was validated according to ICH guidelines and the acceptance criteria for accuracy, precision, linearity, specificity and system suitability were found to be under ICH limits. The method was linear in the range of 5-25 µg/mL of Aspirin, 5-25 µg/mL of Clopidogrel and 1-5 µg/mL of Atorvastatin. Limit of detection obtained were 0.02 µg/mL of Aspirin, 0.05 µg/mL of Clopidogrel and 0.07 µg/mL of Atorvastatin.