On 18 August 2020 the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), the American Botanical Council (ABC) and other organizations issued warning letters to consumers of the herbal supplements and the general public alerting about the potential risk of ingesting any part of the oleander plant, and its constituent oleandrin. This concern was raised because of a discussion about an oleander extract as a promising treatment for COVID-19 that received significant media attention [1-3]. According to AHPA, “oleandrin is a cardiac glycoside found in the oleander plant. Oleander is a highly toxic plant, and death has been associated with oral ingestion of even small amounts of oleander leaf.” [1].
This HPTLC method rapidly identifies oleander (Nerium oleander L.), discriminates the different plant parts, and detects the presence of the toxic cardiac glycoside oleandrin with certainty.
Automatic TLC Sampler (ATS 4), Automatic Developing Chamber (ADC 2), TLC Scanner 4, Derivatizer, TLC Visualizer, visionCATS
0.5 g of dried and finely powdered sample are mixed with 5.0 mL of methanol, sonicated for 10 min and then centrifuged. The supernatant is used as test solution.
>> Download the Full Application Note as a PDF
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