Chemical Composition and Biological Activity of Essential Oils of Centella asiatica (L.)

Abstract

Centella asiatica (L.) is belonging the Apiaciaea family that is very popular for its culinary and medicinal use. In recent years, due to overexploitation, and ineffectual efforts to revitalize this valuable herbal source, the abundance of C. asiatica (L.) in its habitats has suffered significantly, cause to the risk of its extinction. Therefore, its in vitro production interested considerably. In this study, mass production of C. asiatica (L.) was carried out through a cost effective micropropagation protocol and the chemical content of essential oils from micropropagated plants were analyzed by Gas chromatography (GC) and Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and biological properties compared with wild plants. In total, 45 compounds were identified and quantified in wild and micropropagated plants, representing 97.5% and 97.7% of the total oil, respectively. Also the oils were dominated by oxygenated sesquiterpenes, 70.8% and 42.6%, in the wild and micropropagated plants, respectively. Antibacterial assay showed the oil is effective regarding bacterial growth inhibition. The inhibition zones against some bacterial strains (Bacillus megaterium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella aerogenes) were even greater than those of chloramphenicol. The MIC of the oils, against the tested organisms, varied between 1 and 4μL mL−1. The lowest MIC (1 μL mL−1) was detected for the oil against Enterobacter aerugenes and Staphylococcous subrogation. Results were also indicated that the oil of micropropagated plants was more effective than the oils of wild ones. Cytotoxicity assay showed that the toxicity of the studied essential oils are not significant at concentrations of 5–15% (v/v). It could concluded that the essential oil of C. asiatica, in micropropagated plants, have the good antibacterial activities without significant toxicity, at the applied concentration, and thus have great potentiality to be used as a resource for natural health products.