Chemical profile of Artemisia vulgaris L. essential oil and its phytotoxic, insecticidal, and antimicrobial activities

Abstract

Aromatic plants are known to produce essential oils (EOs) with various biological activities, such as phytotoxic, antimicrobial and insecticidal activity, which makes them promising alternatives to replace synthetic agrochemicals for environment safety purpose. In this work, the chemical profile of Artemisia vulgaris EO was analyzed by GC/MS, and its antimicrobial, phytotoxicity, and insecticidal activity were also assessed. Our results indicated that monoterpenes (64.5%) and sesquiterpenes (12.55%) were dominant constituents in the EO, with (Z)-sabinol (15.18%), trans-sabinyl acetate (11.13%), eucalyptol (10.92%) and (E)-piperitol (8.4%) being the major components, sharing 45.63% of the total EO. The EO was found to exhibit potent phytotoxic effect on seedling growth of the monocots Setaria viridis and Poa annua as well as the dicots Amaranthus retroflexus and Medicago sativa in a dose-dependent manner. When treated with 5 mg/mL EO, root development of S. viridis, P. annua, M. sativa and A. retroflexus were significantly suppressed by 96.43%, 96.39%, 98.8% and 99.51%, respectively, compared with the control. Artemisia vulgaris EO also displayed potent insecticidal activity against Aphis gossypii adults with an LC50 value of 46.706 μg/mL; additionally, the EO showed potent antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli and moderate antimicrobial activity against Aspergillus niger, Verticillium dahliae and Bacillus subtilis, using both the disk diffusion method and broth microdilution method. Our results implied that Artemisia vulgaris EO has the potential to be explored as an eco-friendly agrochemical.