Aerial parts of Artemisia arborescens were collected from different sites of the Mediterranean area (southwestern Algeria and southern Italy) and the chemical composition of their essential oil (EO) extracted by hydrodistillation was studied by both gas chromatography (GC) equipped with an enantioselective capillary column and GC/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The EOs obtained were tested against several Listeria monocytogenes strains. Using GC and GC/MS, 41 compounds were identified, accounting for 96.0 -98.8% of the total EO. All EOs showed a similar terpene profile, which was rich in chamazulene, b-thujone, and camphor. However, the concentration of such compounds varied among the EOs. A. arborescens EO inhibited up to 83.3% of the L. monocytogenes strains, but the inhibitory spectrum varied among the EOs, with those from Algeria showing a higher inhibition degree than the Italian EOs. Such effect likely depended on the ketone (b-thujone + camphor) content of the EO. The differences in the EO composition support the hypothesis that A. arborescens has at least two different chemotypes: a b-thujone and a chamazulene type. The EO inhibitory spectrum indicates the A. arborescens EO as a valuable option in the control of the food-borne pathogens.

The chirality issues in the essential oils (EOs) of leaves and flowers from Bubonium graveolens were addressed by chiral high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with polarimetric detection and vibrational circular dichroism (VCD). The chemical compositions of the crude oils of three samples were established by gas chromatography / mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The well-known cis-chrysanthenyl acetate (1), oxocyclonerolidol (2), and the recently disclosed cis-acetyloxychrysanthenyl acetate (3), the three major chiral compounds, were isolated by preparative HPLC. The naturally occurring oxocycloneroledol (2), mostly found in the leaf oil (49.4-55.6%), presents a (+) sign in the mobile phase during HPLC on a chiral stationary phase (CSP) with a Jasco polarimetric detection. The naturally occurring cis-chrysanthenyl acetate (1) and cis-acetyloxychrysanthenyl acetate (3), mostly found in the flower EO (35.9-74.9% and 10.0-34.3%, respectively), both present a (-) sign. HPLC on a CSP with polarimetric detection is an unprecedented approach to readily differentiate the flower and leaf EOs according to their chiral signature. The comparison of the experimental and calculated VCD spectra of pure isolated 1, 2, and 3 provided their absolute configuration as being (1S,5R,6S)-(-)-2,7,7-trimethylbicyclo[3.1.1]hept-2-en-6-yl acetate 1, (2R,6R)-(+)-6-ethenyl-2,6-dimethyl-2-(4-methylpent-3-en-1-yl)dihydro-2H-pyran-3(4H)-one) 2 and (1S,5R,6R,7S)-(-)-7-(acetyloxy)-2,6-dimethylbicyclo[3.1.1]hept-2-en-6-yl]methyl acetate 3. Compounds 1, 2, and 3 were already known in B. graveolens but this is the first report of the absolute configuration of (+)-2 and (-)-3. The VCD chiral signatures of the crude oils were also recorded.

An unprecedented methodology was developed to simultaneously assign the relative percentages of the major chiral compounds and their prevailing enantiomeric form in crude essential oils (EOs). In a first step the infrared (IR) and vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) spectra of the crude essential oils were recorded and in a second step they were modelized as a linear weighted combination of the IR and VCD spectra of the individual spectra of pure enantiomer of the major chiral compounds present in the EOs. The VCD spectra of enantiomer of known enantiomeric excess shall be recorded if they are not yet available in a library of VCD spectra. For IR, the spectra of pure enantiomer or racemic mixture can be used. The full spectra modelizations were performed using a well known and powerful mathematical model (least square estimation: LSE) which resulted in a weighting of each contributing compound. For VCD modelization, the absolute value of each weighting represented the percentage of the associate compound while the attached sign addressed the correctness of the enantiomeric form used to build the model. As an example, a model built with the non-prevailing enantiomer will show a negative sign of the weighting value. For IR spectra modelization, the absolute value of each weighting represented the percentage of the compounds without of course accounting for the chirality of the prevailing enantiomers. Comparison of the weighting values issuing from IR and VCD spectra modelizations is a valuable source of information: if they are identical, the EOs are composed of nearly pure enantiomers, if they are different the chiral compounds of the EOs are not in an optically pure form. The method was applied on four samples of essential oil of Artemisia herba-alba in which the three major compounds namely (-)-α-thujone, (+)-β-thujone and (-)-camphor were found in different proportions as determined by GC-MS and chiral HPLC using polarimetric detector. In order to validate the methodology, the modelization of the VCD spectra was performed on purpose using the individual VCD spectra of (-)-α-thujone, (+)-β-thujone and (+)-camphor instead of (-)-camphor. During this work, the absolute configurations of (-)-α-thujone and (+)-β-thujone were confirmed by comparison of experimental and calculated VCD spectra as being (1S,4R,5R) and (1S,4S,5R) respectively.

The objective of this study is the evaluation of the central and peripheral analgesic activity of the leaves and flowers Essential Oils (EOs) of Asteriscus graveolens as well as their acute toxicity. The pharmacological tests were performed using an animal model. Acute toxicity was determined by Lorke's method. Central analgesic activity was evaluated by the hot plate test, and peripheral analgesic activity was conducted by the writhing test. The results showed that the EOs of A. graveolens from both organs are weakly toxic. For the central analgesic activity, the results revealed that leaf EO have a remarkable antinociceptive effect compared to flowers EO with a maximum latency time of the animals on the hot plate on the order of 22.5 seconds. Finally, the peripheral analgesic activity revealed a maximum inhibition of abdominal writhing of 99% for flowers EO and 96% for leaves EO. Keywords: Asteriscus graveolens, analgesic activity, toxicity.