Profiling volatile and phenolic compound composition and characterization of the morphological and biological activities of Perilla frutescence Britton var. Japonica accessions

Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate the morphological characteristics of Perilla accessions, as well as to determine their antioxidant, antimicrobial, and cytotoxic activities using crude extracts fractionated by different solvents, collected from different part of China and Japan. The composition and concentration of the phenolic compounds and volatile components in the Perilla accessions were determined using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analysis. HPLC analysis showed chlorogenic acid, homogentisic acid, myricetin, benzoic acid, and naringenin to be the dominant phenolic compounds in all the Perilla accessions. Beta-caryophyllene, isoegomaketone egomaketone, perillaketone, and perillene1-octen-3-ol were the dominant volatile compounds in Chinese accessions, and beta-caryophyllene, perillaldehyde, limonene, alpha-pinene, and 1-octen-3-ol in Japanese accessions. Accessions 140 and 141 showed higher DPPH radical scavenging activity (2 µg/mL). Ethyl acetate and hexane extracts from accessions 102 and 114 showed high antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Salmonella typhimurium, Klebsiella pneumonia, and Escherichia coli. Among all the tested microbes, S. aureus was the most sensitive to the tested extracts of accession. A wide and dose-dependent variation in the inhibition of cancer cells (H-1299 cells derived from lymph node) proliferation was observed. At an extract concentration of up to 1.50 µg/mL, the percentage of dead cells varied from 56.4 to 87.7%. These results suggest that the ethyl acetate and hexane extracts from Perilla accessions show potential antioxidant, antimicrobial, and cytotoxic activities and could be used as an important bioresource for the pharmaceutical and food industries.