) Hydroxy Citric Acid (HCA) is found to be the major organic acid present in the fruits of Garcinia
cambogia plant. Recently it has been found to be used as a potent metabolic regulator of obesity and
lipid abnormalities in mammalian system. HCA is isolated from Garcinia cambogia fruit extract and
subjected to various modern analytical techniques for identifying and characterizing the active
constituent. The λ max was obtained at 204 nm when the solution of isolated HCA was scanned
between 200 – 400 nm. The structure of HCA was assessed by observing the characteristic frequency
band in IR spectrum. HCA was identified by observing the orange spot on paper chromatography and
TLC using 1 % Sodium metavanadate spraying reagent and the Rf values were observed at 0.26 and
0.35 respectively. The isolated HCA was subjected to HPTLC analysis and obtained graph was
compared with standard HCA drug.
Content of HCA present in the plant extract has been found to be in the range of 42 - 44%
by using isocratic elution in RP-HPLC with 0.01M Sulfuric acid as mobile phase with a flow rate of 1.0
ml/min using UV detection at 210 nm. Retention time of HCA was observed at 5.3 min in selected
mobile phase. Inter day and Intra day precision studies were carried out and %RSD was found to be
within the range of 0.90 to 1.12.