Assessment of Antioxidative, Chelating, and DNA-Protective Effects of Selected Essential Oil Components (Eugenol, Carvacrol, Thymol, Borneol, Eucalyptol) of Plants and Intact Rosmarinus officinalis Oil

Abstract

Selected components of plant essential oils and intact Rosmarinus officinalis oil (RO) were investigated for their antioxidant, iron-chelating, and DNA-protective effects. Antioxidant activities were assessed using four different techniques. DNA-protective effects on human hepatoma HepG2 cells and plasmid DNA were evaluated with the help of the comet assay and the DNA topology test, respectively. It was observed that whereas eugenol, carvacrol, and thymol showed high antioxidative effectiveness in all assays used, RO manifested only antiradical effect and borneol and eucalyptol did not express antioxidant activity at all. DNA-protective ability against hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-induced DNA lesions was manifested by two antioxidants (carvacrol and thymol) and two compounds that do not show antioxidant effects (RO and borneol). Borneol was able to preserve not only DNA of HepG2 cells but also plasmid DNA against Fe(2+)-induced damage. This paper evaluates the results in the light of experiences of other scientists.

Carvacrol modulates oxidative stress and decreases cell injury in pancreas of rats with acute pancreatitis

“…It is also recognized as a safe food additive and used as flavoring agent in packed foods, sweets, beverages, and chewing gum (Abdollahi et al 2012;Gilling et al 2014). Moreover, CAR shows a high antioxidative effectiveness against DNA lesions (Horvathova et al 2014) and provides protection against lipid peroxidation (Quiroga et al 2015). But its antioxidant effect on AP-caused tissue dysfunctions is not yet documented.…”

Chemical Composition and Antimicrobial Activity of the Essential Oil of Tanacetum persicum

“…The antioxidant activity of thymol and carvacrol was reported previously (15). Borneol was confirmed to have no antioxidant activity in the antioxidant system, but it could protect cell DNA against Fe 2+ -induced damage (15).…”

“…Borneol was confirmed to have no antioxidant activity in the antioxidant system, but it could protect cell DNA against Fe 2+ -induced damage (15). Therefore, the other components of the essential oil or the syner- gistic effect among compounds plays an important role in the antioxidant potency of the essential oil.…”

Comparison of the protective effects of seven selected herbs against oxidative stress

“…In this regard, our results coincide with those of an earlier report [1] which noted no clear relationship between free radical scavenging activity, reducing ability and metal ion chelation activity. Although the seven herbal extracts showed weak chelating effects on ferrous ions compared to ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, they exhibited significant meaningfulness because the chelating activity of seven herbal extracts toward ferrous ions reduces the concentration of the transition metal in lipid peroxidation [16].…”