Light pale-colored volatile oil was obtained from fresh leaves of Malus domestica tree, growing in Dhauladhar range of Himalaya (Himachal Pradesh, India), with characteristic eucalyptol dominant fragrance. The oil was found to be a complex mixture of mono-, sesqui-, di-terpenes, phenolics, and aliphatic hydrocarbons. Seventeen compounds accounting for nearly 95.3% of the oil were characterized with the help of capillary GC, GC-MS, and NMR. Major compounds of the oil were characterized as eucalyptol (43.7%), phytol (11.5%), α-farnesene (9.6%), and pentacosane (7.6%). Cytotoxicity of essential oil of leaves of M. domestica was evaluated by sulforhodamine B (SRB) assays. The essential oil of leaves of M. domestica, tested against three cancer cell lines, namely, C-6 (glioma cells), A549 (human lung carcinoma), CHOK1 (Chinese hamster ovary cells), and THP-1 (human acute monocytic leukemia cell). The highest activity showed by essential oil on C-6 cell lines (98.2%) at concentration of 2000 μg/ml compared to control. It is the first paper in literature to exploit the chemical composition and cytotoxic activity of leaves essential oil of M. domestica.

The essential oil extracted by hydrodistillation from the flowering twigs of Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni (Asteraceae) was fractioned by chromatography. Fortythree constituents were characterized with the help of GC, GC-MS and other spectroscopic techniques. The essential oil was found to be a complex mixture of mono-and sesqui-terpenes. The cytotoxicity of the essential oil and its fractions was evaluated by sulforhodamine B (SRB) based assay against two cancer cell types viz. C-6 (rat glioma cells) and CHOK1 (Chinese hamster ovary cells). The essential oil and its fractions showed promising cytotoxicity against both cell lines. The highest activity (95.6±0.6%) was show by the essential oil on the C-6 cell line at a concentration of 400 μg/mL, which was comparable with that of the standard drug vinblastin.

The essential oil of Eucalyptus cinerea is reported to possess a higher 1,8-cineole content than other Eucalyptus species. Variations in the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of E. cinerea oil produced by hydrodistillation (HD) and supercritical carbon dioxide extraction (SCE) techniques and a comparison between glycoside-bound and free volatile constituents produced by HD have been studied. It was found that HD produced higher oil (free volatiles) content (3.1%) as compared with SCE (1.1%), whereas bound volatiles constituted only about 0.4%. Gas chromatographic (GC) analysis of the oil samples revealed significant difference in their chemical composition. The essential oil (free volatiles) produced by HD contained 1,8-cineole (85.1%) as the major constituent, followed by α-terpineol (7.2%) and limonene (4.4%). In the bound volatile fraction produced by HD, 1,8 cineole (20.6%), α-terpineol (7.6%), p-cymene (6.3%), and limonene (4.5%) were found as major constituents. The extract produced by SCE was dominated by 1,8-cineole (70.4%), α-terpineol (8.6%), globulol (3.1%), aromadendrene (2%), citronellal (1.7%), viridiflorol (1.3%), phytol (1.1%) and terpinen-4-ol (1%). Although HD produced higher oil yields, SCE produced better extract in terms of the number of components detected.

This work reports variations in the yields and quality of volatiles produced from Eucalyptus citriodora leaves by different hydrodistillation (HD) and supercritical carbon dioxide extraction (SCE) techniques. HD techniques (1.5%) produced higher yields compared to SCE (0.7%). Citronellal, the major component, was maximum in the extract produced by SCE (79%) followed by oil produced by water-steam distillation (WSD) (72.6%) and water distillation (WD) (62.4%) techniques. Chemical composition of glycoside-bound volatiles produced by acid hydrolysis during HD was found to be very different from free volatiles, although in a minor quantity. The extent of artefact formation and release of aglycones was more profound in the bound volatile oil produced by WD than WSD. Highest oxygenated monoterpenes were found in SCE and WSD (93% each) followed by WD (91.4%). Although the SCE produced lower yields than the HD techniques, its extract is superior in quality in terms of higher concentration of citronellal.