Abstract
Summary The present study evaluates the antioxidant and antifungal effects of essential oils (EOs) from Thymus vulgaris, Thymus algeriensis, Mentha piperita, Mentha pulegium, Artemisia herba-alba and Artemisia campestris, on five strains of Fusarium. The chemical composition of EOs of T. vulgaris, T. algeriensis, A. herba-alba, M. piperita and M. pulegium is characterized by a dominance of the family of oxygenated monoterpenes with 73.85%, 59.41%, 70.01%, 60.01% and 87.2%, respectively. On the other hand, the EO of A. campestris showed a diverse composition by similar percentages between all families. The two strains BD17 and INRA 349 were found to be resistant to low concentrations of EOs from T. algeriensis, A. campestris and A. herba-alba, sensitive to EOs of M. pulegium and M. piperita and very sensitive to T. vulgaris EO (0.25 μl/ml). A high antioxidant effect was recorded by T. vulgaris EO in BCB assay with an effective concentration (0.5 mg/ml) 3 to 60 times higher compared to the other EOs tested. This antioxidant capacity of T. vulgaris EO was also recorded with DPPH assay at an EC50=1.41 mg/ml.
Highlights
The dangers of intensive use of chemical pesticides in agriculture have forced the search for new natural alternatives based on secondary metabolites of plant origin which have shown significant protective power of crops with no side effects or toxic residues in treated products and the environment by their slow degradation (Kordali et al, 2009; Sumalan et al, 2013; Gordon, 2017)
Four species of Lamiaceae: Mentha piperita L., Mentha pulegium L., Thymus vulgaris L. and Thymus algeriensis Boiss. & Reut. and two species of Asteraceae: Artemisia herba-alba Asso and Artemisia campestris L. were collected in June 2017 from the region of ElHadjeub (Laghouat) and ElGhicha in the south of Djebel Amour in the Algerian hautes plaines
The chemical composition of essential oils of T. vulgaris, T. algeriensis, A. herba-alba, M. piperita and M. pulegium is characterized by a dominance of the family of oxygenated monoterpenes with 73.85%, 59.41%, 70.01%, 60.01% and 87.2% respectively (Fig. 1)
Summary
The dangers of intensive use of chemical pesticides in agriculture have forced the search for new natural alternatives based on secondary metabolites of plant origin which have shown significant protective power of crops with no side effects or toxic residues in treated products and the environment by their slow degradation (Kordali et al, 2009; Sumalan et al, 2013; Gordon, 2017). This has led to the emergence of new eco-based products consisting mainly of terpenoids such as DMC Base Natural, Eugenol-Tween®, Protecta, Herbalox® and Pycnogenol® (Prakash and Kiran, 2016). The antioxidant powers have negatively correlated with seed contamination index (SCI) suggesting that essential oils with high antioxidant characteristics induce low fungal contamination and cannot have a crucial role in the expression of the antimycotoxin effect (Sumalan et al, 2013)
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