Background: Several agricultural or environmental factors affect plants' chemical and pharmacological properties.Methods: In this study, the essential oil of Libyan Satureja thymbra was isolated from plants collected during two successive years at two different altitudes; Wasita (WEO) and Safsaf (SEO), 156 and 661 m above sea level, respectively. Results: GC/MS allowed the identification of 21 and 23 compounds, respectively. Thymol prevailed in WEO (26.69%), while carvacrol prevailed in SEO (14.30%). Antimicrobial activity was tested by agar-well diffusion method, and MIC/ MLC values were determined by broth dilution method. Values of MIC/MLC were 0.125/0.25 μg/ml for SEO against S. aureus, P. mirabilis and K. pneumonia and for WEO against B. subtilus. It was observed that plants growing at lower altitude in Wasita locality had better antifungal activity, while those growing at higher altitude at Safsaf locality had better antibacterial activity. Both essential oils had a better anthelmintic activity than the standard piperazine citrate against a tested earthworm. However, SEO oil had a significantly higher anthelmintic activity than WEO. Cytotoxicity of the oils tested using SRB assay on human breast cancer (MCF-7) and colon cancer cell lines (HCT-116) showed better activity for SEO, especially against HCT-116 with IC 50 2.45 ± 0.21 μg/ml. Conclusions: Thus, altitude is an important factor that should be considered as it affected the yield, composition and biology of the plant extracts.
A comparative study of the essential oils prepared from the fresh leaves of plants collected from St Catherine, Sinai (sample I), and from Giza (sample 11) was carried out. The yields were 0.14 and 0.40% respectively.Analysis of the oils by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) led to the identification of 43 components in sample 1. These components represented 82% of the total composition of the oil. Verbenone (12.3%), camphor (1 1.3%), bornyl acetate (7.6%) and limonene (7.1%) were the major constituents. Thirtyseven components, which represented about 86% of the total composition of the oil, were identified in sample 11. Camphor (14.9%), a-pinene (9.3%), and 1 ,&cineole (9.00/,) were the main constituents.Sample I1 showed a good antimicrobial activity against Candida albicans, Cryptococcus neoforrnans and Mycobacterium intracellularae.Preliminary screening against the earthworms Allolobophora caliginosa showed that both oils have a marked vermicidal activity.
Four alkaloids of the phenethylamine derivatives have been isolated from the n-butanol fraction of the aerial parts of Stapelia hirsuta L. The structures of the isolated alkaloids were determined as N-acetyl hordenine (a new natural compound), hordenine, candicine and hordenine-1-O-beta-D-glucoside, in addition to luteolin-7-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside.
Active components from natural sources are the current focus in most pharmacological research to provide new therapeutic agents for clinical use. Essential oils from the Pinus species have been traditionally used in medicine. This study aimed to investigate the chemical profile of two Pinus species, Pinus halepensis L. and Pinus pinea Mill, from different altitudes in Libya and study the effect of environmental conditions on the biological activities of essential oils. A clevenger apparatus was used to prepare the essential oils by hydrodistillation. Analyses were done using GC/MS. Anthelmintic and antimicrobial activities were tested against the earthworm Allolobophora caliginosa, gram-positive bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, and fungi. Different chemical profiles were observed among all tested essential oils, and terpenes were the most dominant class. All studied essential oils from the Pinus species exhibited a remarkable anthelmintic activity compared to the standard piperazine citrate drug. Pinus halepensis from both altitudes showed broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against all tested microorganisms, while Pinus pinea was effective against only Escherichia coli. From these findings, one can conclude that there are variations between studied species. The essential oil compositions are affected by environmental factors, which consequently affect the anthelmintic and antimicrobial activity.
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