Compositional Variability and Toxic Activity of Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) Essential Oils

Abstract

The compositional variability of the essential oils of aerial parts of mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris L.), collected from fifteen wild populations in Lithuania is detailed. The most predominant components were davanones (13.8-45.5%, six oils), germacrene D (9.1-30.5%, four oils), 1,8-cineole (16.4%, one oil), camphor (18.9%, one oil), trans-thujone (8.9 and 10.9%, two oils) and cis-chrysanthenyl acetate (10.4%, one oil). To the best of our knowledge, the davanone chemotype for A. vulgaris oils is described for the first time. The toxicity of the mugwort essential oils was determined using brine shrimp (Artemia sp.) assay. LC 50 values (10.3-23.1 µg/mL) obtained for the oils after 24 h of exposure revealed that the oils containing appreciable amounts of germacrene D, 1,8-cineole, camphor and davanone were notably toxic.

Chemical Polymorphism of Essential Oils of Artemisia vulgaris Growing Wild in Lithuania

“…The main composition of oil 32 was as follows: cis ‐chrysanthenyl acetate (10.4%), germacrene D (9.5%), and trans ‐thujone (9.4%). Thujone has been determined among main constituents in numerous mugwort oils form the plants growing in Croatia, France, Lithuania, Serbia, the USA, India, Nepal, Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco …”

“…[ [38] Oils 41 -44 attributed to the same subcluster were characterized by major compound one of the davanones isomers, davanone (7.0 -27.9%, numbers 41, 43, and 44) or davanone B (16.1%, Table 2, sample 42). In the previous research on A. vulgaris volatile secondary metabolites, performed in our laboratory, [37] mugwort EOs predominantly contained davanone B ranging from 13.3 to 44.4%. This study confirmed the davanone B chemotype once again.…”

“…Moroccan origin [35] a insecticidal, [19][31][34] [36] antioxidant, [20][29] [36] antibacterial [23] and other properties. [27][36] [37] Previous limited studies of the volatile components from mugwort grown in Lithuania were rather fragmentary, [17] [37] and unfortunately no comprehensive study on the native populations of A. vulgaris is available. This is the first detailed report on the analysis of the EO compositions of mugwort (160 individual plants collected at full flowering) from forty-four different accessions distributed all over the territory of Lithuania (Figure 1).…”

“…A. vulgaris synthesizes many bioactive compounds, such as terpenoids, sesquiterpene lactones, flavonoid glycosides, coumarins, carotenoids, resins, alkaloids, and polysaccharides. Essential oil (EO) makes a significant contribution to plant biological activity as well, and for that reason the chemical composition was a subject of many studies (and references cited therein). The most important and characteristic components of mugwort oils are α ‐, β ‐pinene, myrcene, phellandrene, cis ‐, trans ‐thujone, camphor, 1,8‐cineole, artemisia ketone, borneol, verbenone, caryophyllene and its oxide, isobornyl isobutyrate, artemisia alcohol, chrysanthenol, cis‐, trans ‐chrysanthenyl acetate, lyratol, α ‐humulene, davanone B, and elemol ( Table ).…”

“…The composition varied not only by individual principal components, but also by the quantity of different compound classes. EOs are used for their allelopathic, antimalarial, anthelmintic, antifungal, antimicrobial, insecticidal, antioxidant, antibacterial and other properties …”