Development and Validation of HPLC assay of Lycopene in Different Matrices

Abstract

Lycopene is the red pigment richly found in many red-colored fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, papaya, pink grapefruit, pink guava, and watermelon. It is an antioxidant that has various beneficent effects and protects against oxidative damage to lipids, protein, and DNA. It is a potent quencher of oxygen and most effective against cancer, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, hypertension, male infertility, and neurodegenerative disease. Lycopene is synthesized by plants and microorganisms but not animals and humans. The main objective of this study is to develop and validate an HPLC assay method for the determination of lycopene in tomato, watermelon, and human blood. A simple assay method is an economical assay method, suitable for the determination of lycopene from plant and biological sources. A new accurate, specific, precise, high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method has been developed and validated for the determination of lycopene in tomatoes, watermelon and blood sample according to the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines. Acetonitrile, Methanol, Water (65%, 20%, and 15%) was used as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.7ml/min. using a symmetry C18 column. The effluent was spectrophotometrically monitored at 484nm. The calibration curve was linear with a correlation coefficient of 0.9994. The average recovery was found to be 102.0%. The proposed HPLC method was successfully applied to quantify the amount of lycopene in different matrices.