Chemical Composition and Antimicrobial Activity of Essential Oils from Different Parts of Daucus littoralis Smith subsp. hyrcanicus Rech. f.

Abstract

Daucus littoralis Smith subsp. hyrcanicus Rech. f (Apiaceae) is an endemic species in north of Iran. The chemical composition of the essential oils obtained from different parts (leaves and stems, roots, flowers and fruits) of this plant have been investigated by GC and GC-MS for the first time. The essential oils of all parts were characterized by high amounts of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (62 to 67 %) especially germaceren D (22 to 36 % in leaves, stems, flowers and roots) and acorenone B (19.7 to 57.5 % in all parts). So this can be considered as a remarkable difference between this species and other Daucus species. The high amounts of phenylpropanoids (8 to 30.3 %) were also found in all parts. Fruits oil was characterized by higher amounts of phenylpropanoids(30.3 %) while other parts were consisted of 8 to 10 % of these compounds. Myristicin was identified in leaves/stems, roots and fruits oil of this plant as one of the major components (8.6 %, 9.5 % and 15.2 % respectively). Elimicin (15.1 %) was identified as a major component in fruits but in lower amount (0.4 to 3.6 %) in other parts. All the essential oils have antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Candida albicans with MIC value ranged of 20-40 μl/ml.