Chemical Composition and Antibacterial Activity of Angelica archangelica Root Essential Oil

Abstract

Roots of wild growing Angelica archangelica L. from Mt. Ozren (Serbia) were subjected to hydrodistillation and GC-MS analysis. The roots contained 0.10% of essential oil with α-pinene (29.7%), δ-3-carene (14.2%), and a mixture of β-phellandrene and limonene (13.2%) as main compounds. The modified resazurin microtiter-plate assay was used to evaluate the antibacterial activity of the essential oil against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values were 14.2 μL/mL for S. aureus and 28.4 μL/mL for E. coli, while the minimum bactericidal concentrations (MBC) were 56.8 μL/mL and 113.6 μL/mL, respectively. According to the obtained results, the angelica root essential oil can be applied as a natural preservative in food and as a natural antibiotic for the treatment of several infectious diseases caused by these two bacteria.

Back to the Roots—An Overview of the Chemical Composition and Bioactivity of Selected Root-Essential Oils

“…Despite this large diversity in its chemical composition, phytochemical analysis clearly indicated ALT and IAL as the main bioactive compounds in the EOs, exhibiting a wide spectrum of biological activities, including antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties, with no significant toxicity [180]. The α, β-methylene lactone Figure 1 (27) functionality-a significant characteristic of most sesquiterpene lactones-and two eudesmane core olefinic bonds in the sesquiterpene lactones seem to be essential structural requirements for their broad spectrum of activities [33,173,181]. These activities might be associated with the Michael acceptor property of this moiety, allowing the formulation of covalent adducts with nucleophilic residues on diverse biomolecules.…”

“…It contained α-pinene (29.7%), δ-3-carene (14.2%), and a mixture of β-phellandrene and limonene (13.2%) as the principal components. Furthermore, sabinene (6.1%), α-phellandrene (5.7%), myrcene (4.1%), p-cymene (3.8%), and trans-β-ocimene (3.6%) were detected among 59 identified constituents (99.3% of the total oil) [ 27 ]. Similarly, α-pinene (24.5%), δ-3-carene (13.8%), and β-phellandrene (10.1%), p -cymene (8.8%), limonene (8.4%), and sabinene (6.3%) were the most abundant components in a commercial A. archangelica EO from China (45 identified constituents) [ 23 ].…”

Variability of composition of essential oil and coumarin compounds of Angelica archangelica L.

“…As the dominant compound of the root, β-phellandrene was also found in Central and Eastern Europe, but concentrations of this compound were lower [40]. In most materials from Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, the main compound of the oil in angelica root was α-pinene [14,43,[50][51][52][53]. Sabinene was found in large quantities in raw material from western and northern parts of Finland [45,54].…”

Nutraceutical Potential of Apiaceae

“…The main components of angelica roots essential oil are α-pinene, δ-3carene, β-phellandrene and limonene, while in seed it is β-phellandrene, α-phellandrene, α-pinene, myrcene and α-copaene [75,76] Apium graveolens Celery essential oil contains limonene and selinene. However, the important flavor constituents of the oil responsible for the typical aroma are phtalides The dominant compound in fennel seed and herb essential oil is transanethole which gives them similar scent as to aniseed [89].…”

“…Applied externally, angelica is good as a counter-irritant, for treatment of rheumatic diseases [118]. New investigations of this plant show that it possesses good antioxidative [119,120,121] and antimicrobial activity [72,75,122,123].…”