Abstract
Objective: The objective of the study was to find out the antibacterial efficacy and identify the main constituents of the essential oil of Atriplex halimus from southwest of Algeria.
 Methods: The essential oil from the aerial parts of the endemic plant A. halimus (saltbush in English, qataf in Arabic) collected from the region of Sahara southwest of Algeria was isolated by hydrodistillation and analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Antibacterial potency of essential oil from this plant has been tested against Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 29213), Escherichia coli (ATCC 25922), and Bacillus cereus (ATCC11778) by disk diffusion assay.
 Results: The essential oil revealed the presence of 14 components, the dominant compounds arecadina-1(10), 4-diene (10.69%), germacrene D (9.79%), octane (9.37%), pelargonaldehyde (9.06%), 3-Furancarboxaldehyde (6.87%), β-pinene (2.6%), camphene (2.59%), and myrcene (2.10%). The essential oil exhibits very effective antimicrobial activity using disk diffusion assay method with minimum inhibitory concentration ranging from 0.82 μl/ml to 2.4525 μl/ml.
 Conclusions: This result showed that this native plant may be a good candidate for further biological and pharmacological investigations.
Highlights
Atriplex species of the family Amaranthaceae are among the few salt-tolerant plants which collected the salt lands in bladder cells situated on leaf surfaces and subsequently excreted by the bursting of these cells [1,2]
We report the chemical composition of the essential oil of A. halimus growing in Algeria, and some carried antibacterial activities
The number of components identified in the essential oil of A. halimus is 14 which accounted for 91.94% of the total components
Summary
Atriplex species of the family Amaranthaceae (formerly Chenopodiaceae) are among the few salt-tolerant plants which collected the salt lands in bladder cells situated on leaf surfaces and subsequently excreted by the bursting of these cells [1,2]. Atriplex halimus is an evergreen shrub which can grow 2 m high and 3 m diameter at a medium rate. It is a monoecious plant that is pollinated by wind and produces a staminate flower [3]. It is widely distributed in Europe and Northern Africa, including the Sahara in Morocco and Algeria [4] (Fig. 1). A. halimus is used as fodder reserves and as a supplementary forage resource in arid and semi-arid countries [5]. The ensiling A. halimus as a browse forage showed comparable results to polyethylene glycol (PEG) supplementation and might be easier and might lower feeding cost than daily PEG supplementation [6]
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