Peganum harmala L., also known as Syrian rue or Pègano, is a herbaceous plant belonging to the Zygohpyllaceae family, and is widely used in traditional medicine. The chemical composition of essential oils of P. harmala seeds from five different regions of Northern Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia) was studied by GC and GC-MS analyses. A total of 105 compounds were identified, the main components being oxygenated monoterpenes and oxygenated sesquiterpenes. Eugenol is the main component in all oils. The antimicrobial activity of the essential oils was assayed against some bacterial strains: Staphylococcus aureus (DSM 25693), Bacillus cereus (DSM 4313), Bacillus cereus (DSM4384), Escherichia coli (DMS 857) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 50071). All the oils showed different inhibitory activity. In the twentieth century this is an important result; we need possible new botanical drugs because the problem of resistance to antimicrobial drugs has become apparent. Moreover, the essential oils were evaluated for their possible in vitro phytotoxic activity against germination and initial radicle growth of Raphanus sativus L., Lepidium sativum L., and Ruta graveolens L. The results showed that both germination and radical elongation were sensitive to the oils.
In this work, we characterized by high-performance liquid chromatography, the γ-tocopherol (573.66 μg/g), and by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the linoleic acid (62.05%) as major components from Peganum harmala L. seeds oil and evaluated their potential in vivo acute antiinflammatory, analgesic activities, and in vitro antioxidative capacity. The 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging assay showed an important antioxidant activity (62.50% with an IC50 of 4.8 mg/mL). In addition, the antiinflammatory effect of the formulation cream at 20% caused a reduction in inflammation at 5 hours after carrageenan application compared with diclofenac at 1% (60.4%; 45.65%; respectively). A slight potential peripheral analgesia was noted in plantar test in treated rats with cream (20 s). Therefore, our findings demonstrate that formulation cream of P. harmala seeds oil has an interesting antiinflammatory activity with a slight peripheral analgesic effect due mainly to its richness on linoleic acid, γ-tocopherol, and polyphenols and to its important antioxidant capacity.
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