Chemical Variability of Essential Oils of Lippia Alba (Miller) N. E. Brown Growing in Costa Rica and Argentina

Abstract

Lippia alba (Verbenaceae) is a shrub whose essential oil has important biological, pharmacological, and aromatizing properties. The species has a natural range from Central America to Argentina, being cultivated for its commercial value in Brazil, Argentina and Guatemala, and has been introduced into India and Spain. To reach the economic potential of the plant,, the present study was aimed at evaluating L. alba for different chemotypes. The composition of the essential oil from two native populations of L. alba, collected from Argentina and two accessions from Costa Rica, were screened by GC and GC-MS. The results obtained led us to adopt the concept of a biodistribution map, as was proposed previously for the species, representing an approach to the natural biological distribution of the species in America based on the chemotypes described and their geographical distribution. Moreover, the biodiversity reported for the species (seven of eight chemotypes described for L. alba are present in Argentina) suggests the southern region of South America as the centre of distribution for L. alba.

Essential Oils of New Lippia alba Genotypes Analyzed by Flow-Modulated Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography (GC×GC) and Chemometric Analysis

“…The essential oil of the X2M1 genotype showed the highest abundance of β-myrcene (51.11%), also observed to the genotypes X6M6 (34.50%) and X6M13 (31.59%, Figure 1 ), and the values described in this work are higher than those that are commonly reported in literature to this species, ranging mainly from 0.30 to 25.81% among the distinct chemotypes analyzed from different geographical origin [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ]. Marques, (2018), e.g., observed an increase of 1.30% of the production of β-myrcene after cultivation of the plant in green manures in succession [ 32 ].…”

Effect of the Lippia alba (Mill.) N.E. Brown essential oil and its main constituents, citral and limonene, on the tracheal smooth muscle of rats

“…L. alba has a large biological distribution of the species in America, which is based mainly on the chemotypes and their geographic distribution [ 15 ] The results demonstrate that the EOLa, citral and limonene promoted relaxation of tracheal smooth muscles from Wistar rats, both in potassium and acetylcholine induced contractions. On the other hand, we did not observe any alteration on muscle tone, this result is relevant as the EOLa and its constituents do not alter the physiology of the tissue, moreover it has already been seen that the EOLa possesses low toxicity [ 16 ].…”

Antioxidant Effect of Lippia alba (Miller) N. E. Brown

“…L. alba expresses morphological and phytochemical variations, which characterize the different accessions of this plant [ 6 ]. High qualitative and quantitative variations of the essential oil composition of L. alba accessions have been reported previously [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]. This plant also contains phenolic compounds, primarily flavonoids [ 9 ] that exert antioxidant properties.…”