Chemical composition and antimicrobial activity of hydrodistilled oil from juniper berries

Abstract

A B S T R A C TThis study aimed at investigating the chemical composition and in vitro antimicrobial activity of juniper (Juniperus communis L.) berries essential oils (EOs), including commercial samples as well as the oil hydrodistilled from berries grown in Portugal, for which few information is available in the literature. The analysis was performed by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry detection (GC/MS) allowing the identification of a total of 97 compounds. The EOs showed different chemical profiles with only one being according to the European Pharmacopoeia 8 requirements. The laboratory-hydrodistilled EO was characterized by its high content in α-pinene (41.6%), followed by β-pinene (27.6%) and limonene (6.4%), commercial EO1 by α-pinene (31.1%), β-myrcene (16.3%) and sabinene (7.5%) and commercial EO2 by δ-cadinene (16.0%), α-pinene (12.2%) and sabinene (9.4%). The distinct chemical profiles were also evidenced by principal components analysis (PCA), with a clear separation of the evaluated EOs. One of the commercial samples, showed the presence of propachlor, a banned herbicide in the European Union. All the EOs showed relevant antimicrobial activity as they presented microbicidal activity against Candida albicans and at least six of the ten tested bacteria. Commercial EO2 showed a higher biological activity, as it was active against all tested microorganisms, which could be related to its higher content in sesquiterpenes, in particular those oxygenated. Overall, results support the use of Juniper communis L. berries EO as an antiseptic in traditional medicine and highlight its potential as a biopreservative that could be used in different industries.

New Formulation towards Healthier Meat Products: Juniperus communis L. Essential Oil as Alternative for Sodium Nitrite in Dry Fermented Sausages

“…Results suggested a majority of terpenoids with hydrocarbons, while a lower amount could be accounted for by the oxygenated monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes. Present results were in accordance with similar studies since it was reported that monoterpene hydrocarbons [α-pinene (31.1%), β-myrcene (16.3%), sabinene (7.5%), limonene (6.2%) and β-pinene (3.7%)] were the major compounds identified in commercial JEO [47]. Similar results were also reported by Radoukova et al [48] and Zheljazkov et al [49].…”

Biological investigations of essential oils extracted from threeJuniperusspecies and evaluation of their antimicrobial, antioxidant and cytotoxic activities

“…The available literature reports a-pinene, b-pinene, limonene and b-myrcene as the main components of the EO of J. communis (Orav et al 2010;Loziene et al 2010;Adams et al 2010;Falcão et al 2018). Sabinene was identified as the dominant component in the EO of J. communis subsp.…”

“…The antibacterial activity has been tested against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Shigella sonei, Yersinia enterocolitica and Streptococcus pneumoniae (Eryi git et al 2014;Radoukova et al 2018;Salamon et al 2019). The EO from J. communis berries was more bioactive than the EO extracted from its leaves against Gram-positive (G+ve) and Gram-negative (GÀve) bacteria (Haziri et al 2013;Falcão et al 2018;Zheljazkov et al 2018). Moreover, the possible cytotoxic activity of the EOs from different juniper species has been reported (Topҫu et al 2005;El-Sawi et al 2007;Maurya et al 2018;Vasilijevi c et al 2018).…”

Secondary metabolites (essential oils) from sand-dune plants induce cytotoxic effects in cancer cells

“…EOs were analysed by gas chromatography (GC) for quantification of extract components, and GC coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) for identification of EOs components, as previously described (Falcão et al, 2018). In brief, the GC-MS unit consisted on a PerkinElmer system with a Clarus® 580 GC module and a Clarus® SQ 8 S MS module, equipped with DB-5MS fused-silica column (30 m × 0.25 mm i.d., film thickness 0.25 μm; J&W Scientific, Inc.).…”