CANNABIS THIN LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHY (TLC) CHEMO TYPING: HOW ACCURATE IS TLC COMPARED TO HIGH PRESSURE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY?

Abstract

Problem: Brazilian Cannabis Associations (BCA) search for methods of reducing their costs and increasing their quality control of Cannabis spp. Oil and extracts. The significant difficulties presented by ABRACAM (Associação Brasileira Cannabis Medicinal) to UFPI professors were to standardize cannabinoids profiles of its plants and guarantee the same levels of cannabinoids on its artisanal extracts. ABRACAM has difficulty standardizing plant cannabinoids profiles due to Cannabis spp. Phenotypic plasticity, or the ability of Cannabis spp. to change attributes like the size of leaves, levels of secondary metabolites, stems structures, flowering period, among others. The second problem is that artisanal extract combines different production batches of non-tested extractions. It is necessary to quantify and qualify each cannabinoid and how much is on artisanal Cannabis production. Aiming to solve the ABRACAM production problem, UFPI and CANNAPI suggested manual testing practices to test cannabis and its derivates. This article results from validation tests performed at ABRACAM to determine how precise manual methods are to quantify cannabinoids.  Methods: This research compared the cannabinoids results of an off-the-shelf Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) cannabinoids profile test kit with the results of a High-Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). UFPI perfect the method from the vendor manual after running sixty quantifications from one sample.  Results: The TLC error compared to HPLC was between approximately 0,5% and 1%. ABRACAM differentiated the Chemotype Profile of its High THC varieties and High CBD varieties. For High CBD variety, the outdoor cultivation proportionated greater cannabinoids levels. Conclusions: The comparison pointed that TLC may be used as testing equipment for this Brazilian Association due to its artisanal production license. This article concludes that precision is the key to medication production, and the TLC error may be accepted for artisanal production but not as a standard for precision. For scientific purposes, TLC is a strong hypothesis builder, and for agriculture, purposes may be a vital tool point the right time to harvest.