BigPatents India

Leishmaniasis (kala-azar) has claimed a large number of human lives till the advent of antimonial drugs Sodium antimony gluconate (SAG). Other drugs have also appeared in the market for treating this dreaded disease, but all of them are toxic and have adverse side effects. The present invention attempts to find a suitable alternatives from vegetative sources which is cost-effective and has virtually no side effects. This invention provides a process for preparing pure Glycyrrhizic acid from Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) roots effective against Leishmaniasis, which comprises- a) collecting licorice roots, cleaning them with water at ambient temperature and soaking the cleaned roots in distilled water overnight; b) boiling the soaked roots and water for around 1.5 to 2 hours; c) filtering the extract and mixing it with absolute alcohol (94-96% v/v) in the ratio of 14 (vlv), resulting in a gel like precipitate; d) centrifuging the alcoholic extract mixture of around 5900Xg for 30 mins; e) filtering the supernatant liquid through a Millipore filter of 0.22 jim pore size; 1) lyophilizing the filtrate to dryness and dissolving the dried extract in 50% ethanol; g) subjecting the ethanolic extract to Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) on silica gel using pure Glycyrrhizic acid as standard and a solvent mixture selected from the group of choloroform water, choloroform methanol water, acetone water and ethanol water, as eluant; h) further purifying the extracted acid by Preparative Thin Layer Chromatography (PTLC) on silica gel using the same solvent mixture as in step(g) to obtain the desired pure product and, if desired, i) treating macrophages infected with Leishmania donovani by the pure product thus produced. (FIG. - nil)