Study on biological activity of Lavandula angustifolia and Citrus aurantiifolia essential oils

Abstract

Abstract The essential oils of Lavandula angustifolia (lavender) and Citrus aurantiifolia (lime), have been used in several applications such as food industry, pharmacy, and cosmetics industries. In this report, we examined the biological activities of lavender and lime essential oils through several studies using β-carotene bleaching assay, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay, antidiabetic assay, antibacterial assay, and also measure its total phenolic content (TPC). The functional group of lavender and lime was studied using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), while the volatile compound was evaluated using Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. The result showed that in DPPH assay, both of lavender and lime essentials oil have low activity with IC 50 of 1966.02 ppm and 4303.42 ppm, respectively, while in beta-carotene bleaching assay, lime has higher antioxidant activity of 39.03% compared to lavender as of 17.55%. Antibacterial activity against S. aureus showed that both lavender and lime have good activity as of 18.13 mm and 18.06 mm, respectively. The antidiabetic activity using α-glucosidase inhibitory activity presented that lavender and lime had high activity of 89.58 % and 88.30 %, respectively. Furthermore, the total phenolic content of lavender was slightly higher as of 480.00 mg GAE/g compared to lime as of 393.33 mg GAE/g. The GC-MS analysis of essential oils showed that lavender contains linalyl acetate (38.78%), linalool (36.12%), and 1,8-cineole (8.38%), while lime contains d-limonene (73.72%), beta-pinene (9.83%) and gamma-terpinene (8.24%), respectively. The present study showed the potential use of lavender and lime essential oils for antidiabetic, antimicrobial, and antioxidant agents.