Analyzing the effects of altitudes on the metabolic diversity and forskolin content in Coleus forskohlii roots by HPTLC and HPLC

Introduction Coleus forskohlii is an important medicinal plant native to India. It grows wild in a wide range of altitude in the Indian Himalayan region and contains some important phytochcemicals which possess remarkable medicinal properties. The plant contains terpenoid like Forskolin in its roots. Objective Considering the medicinal importance of C. forskohlii, being the only source of Forskolinand its availability over a wide altitude range, the effect of altitude on the metabolic diversity and forskolin content was assessed using the HPTLC and HPLC. Methods Five populations of Coleus forskohlii collected from five locations of varying altitude from Uttarakhand, India. The plant roots were extracted with methanol by soxhlet extraction. The metabolic diversity was analyzed by employing HPTLC fingerprinting while forskolin was extracted and quantified by HPLC. Results Significant differences were observed in the phytochemical composition through the HPTLC chromatograms among the studied population across the altitudes. The Gopeshwar population (1488m) showed highest number of bands on HPTLC chromatogram each of which corresponds to acompound. Results of HPLC shows differences in forskolin quantity in studied populations and the Piaplkoti population(1339m) showed highest forskolin accumulation. Conclusion The present study confirms that altitude and changing environment affects the nature and quantity of secondary metabolites in C. forskohlii and the environmental conditions might be instrumental factor for intraspecific metabolic diversity. The Pipalkoti (1339m) and Gopeshwar (1488m) populations were found suitable for the forskolin production as well as other metabolites and these two populations can be propagated for commercial use.