Citizen TLC analysis of marketed commercial Sceletium tortuosum products Many Sceletium tortuosum products have been marketed in Australia, offering claimed effects from "Mood enhancer", "Relaxo" to general claims as an "all-purpose herb". These products range from raw dry powdered herb, to extracts to combination products eg tinctures with kava. The general target market seems to be for mood enhancement, with one product making claims like "Mood enhancer Positive > Happy < Euphoric". Others claim, albeit unsubstantiated, to have an "Extremely high alkaloid content" That said, the market is unregulated leading to difficulty ascertaining the actual content of the product and likely effects, let alone make informed decisions on the safety of the product for consumption or safe and effective dosing. Other analyses of herbal products in the past has found that of "44 herbal supplements tested, one-third showed outright substitution, meaning there was no trace of the plant advertised on the bottle — only another plant in its place" [1]. Such a diverse range of products and strengths also makes it extremely challenging to use the Sceletium products more therapeutically for mood management. Previous citizen TLC analyses of diverse Mesembryanthemums found a generalised Rf=~0.3 band characteristic to known mesembrine-type alkaloid containing plants. The purpose of this citizen science was to explore if the marketed products were likely legitimately Sceletium/mesembrine alkaloid-containing. Experimental Small aliquots of each product were extracted with basified (aq. ammonia) isopropanol and concentrated to a small sample. TLC (silica, 0.2mm, glass backed, acetone elution, I 2 visualisation) was used. Where powdered forms such as dry extracts or raw herb were concerned, this was simple, for tinctured products they were first evaporated to near dryness. In addition to a commercial 5:1 product which was previously used as a reference material, three easily available commercial products (Fig. 1) were subjected to a rapid, simple TLC analysis. Figure 1. Commercial Sceletium products analysed via citizen TLC. 1 Results The sample 'MG', "Relaxo" raw herb gave characteristic constituents Rf = 0.27 (as a broad large constituent) and at Rf = 0.84 The commercial extract claiming to be "Extremely high alkaloid content" identified as 'BM' gave a constituent at Rf = 0.27 and 0.8, the higher Rf constituent being a major component. The tinctured product containing Kava, identified as'KK' gave a characteristic strong streak of constituents from Rf = 0.25 to 0.57 TLC (faded I 2 visualisation) Discussion In general, all the marketed products gave a constituent nearing the hypothesised mesembrine-type alkaloid band of Rf = 0.3. That said, there was some diversity between the samples and between all 4 commercial Sceletium products (including the 5:1) some noted differences. The results should be interpreted with caution and definitely not quantitatively as the limitations of citizen science pose some significant analytical issues. Previous TLC of a 5:1 commercial extract (granules) gave a strong constituent at Rf = 0.3 and 0.52, the lower Rf band seemingly characteristic of diverse known mesembrine-type alkaloid containing plants. Hence, it seems quite likely all the samples tested qualitatively contain some mesembrine- containing constituents. Interestingly, the "Extremely high alkaloid" sample tested showed the faintest low Rf band with a major constituent at a higher Rf ~0.8 which was also seen in the raw herb material sample. References: [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/herbal-supplements-are-often-not- what-they-seem.html 2