Chemical Composition, Antioxidant, and Antibacterial Activities of the Essential Oil and Methanol Extracts of Eucalyptus oleosa Leaves

Abstract

This study was designed to examine the chemical composition of essential oil and in vitro antioxidant and antibacterial activity of the essential oil and methanol extracts of Eucalyptus oleosa F. Muell. The chemical composition of the hydrodistilled essential oil of the leaves of E. oleosa was analyzed by gas chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. The main constituents of the oil were found to be 1,8-cineole (45.1%), α-pinene (14.52%), and α-terpineol (4.35%). The essential oil showed strong antibacterial activity against the test microorganisms studied, while polar subfraction of methanol extract had moderate antibacterial activity and the nonpolar subfraction of methanol extract did not show any antibacterial activity. In contrast, the extract showed much better activity than the essential oil in antioxidant activity assays employed, e.g., in DPPH systems, the highest radical-scavenging activity was shown by the polar subfraction (15.1 ± 0.7 μg/ml). In the second case, the inhibition capacity (%) of the nonpolar subfraction (98.2% ± 1.5) was found to be the stronger one. In addition, the amounts of total phenol components in the polar subfraction (186.3 ± 2.1 μg/mg) and the nonpolar subfraction (79.6 ± 1.4) were determined.