Dear scientists,

I did extraction with 70% aqueous ethanol from the root parts of one plant from Astereace family. I did analysis of total triterpenoid contents by following method of Wei et al, 2015. The method is as follow:

Briefly, after a 200-μL sample solution in a 10 mL volumetric

flask was heated to evaporation in a water-bath, 1 mL new mixed 5%

(W/V) vanillin-acetic solution and 1.8 mL sulfuric acid were added,

mixed and incubated at 70°C for 30 min. Then the mixed solution

was cooled and diluted to 10 mL with acetic acid. The absorbance

was measured at 573 nm against blank using a spectrophotometer.

The blank consisted of all reagents and solvents without sample

solution. The content was determined using the standard ursolic

acid calibration curve.

After applying the above method I observed some Brownish color as well in the crude extracts.

But in TLC we could not find Taraxasterol, Taraxasterol acetate and ursolic acid, though some other bands were present instead of these three standards bands.

The question is what kind of other triterpenoids they maybe for which I obtained some bands in TLC in Chloroform: Methanol:Water solvent system.?

Besides that can we say consider saponins as Triterpenoids?