Chemical composition and biological activities of essential oils from six lamiaceae folk medicinal plants

Jiahui Sun; Peipei Sun; Chuanzhi Kang; Lanyue Zhang; Lanping Guo; Yaping Kou

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.919294

Chemical composition and biological activities of essential oils from six lamiaceae folk medicinal plants

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Aug 1:13:919294. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.919294. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Jiahui Sun¹, Peipei Sun², Chuanzhi Kang¹, Lanyue Zhang³, Lanping Guo¹, Yaping Kou^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ National Resources Center for Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
² Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Biorefinery, School of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ National Center of China for Flowers Improvement, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Improvement of Flower Crops (North China), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Essential oils have attracted wide attention in recent years due to their extensive applications in natural functional ingredients, pharmaceutical preparations, biomedical products, and the cosmetics industry. In this study, the chemical compositions and biological activities of essential oils extracted from six Lamiaceae herbs, including Pogostemon cablin (Blanco) Benth. (PCEO), Perilla frutescens (L.) Britton (PFEO), Salvia japonica Thunb. (SJEO), Rosmarinus officinalis L. (ROEO), Lavandula angustifolia Mill. (LAEO), and Agastache rugosa (Fisch. & C. A. Mey.) Kuntze (AREO), were determined and analyzed. A total of 167 components were identified from the six essential oils by GC-MS analysis, with 35, 24, 47, 46, 54, and 37 components in PCEO, PFEO, SJEO, ROEO, LAEO, and AREO, respectively. Hierarchical cluster analysis of chemical compositions showed that the composition of the six essential oils was significantly different in content, and they were clearly divided into six classes. However, all of these six essential oils exhibited promising anti-inflammatory activity by inhibiting the expression of interleukin-1, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, and cyclooxygenase-2 in rats with adjuvant arthritis, among which PFEO had the best performance. In addition, the six essential oils displayed significant cytotoxicity on B16 (IC₅₀ = 86.91-228.91 μg/mL) and LNCaP cell lines (IC₅₀ = 116.4-189.63 μg/mL). Meanwhile, all of them presented satisfactory antioxidant activity (IC₅₀ = 4.88-13.89 μg/mL) compared with Trolox C (IC₅₀ = 13.83 μg/mL), and SJEO (IC₅₀ = 7.93 μg/mL) served as an optimal candidate natural antioxidant by DPPH assay. Taken together, these results indicate that the six Lamiaceae essential oils manifest excellent and diverse biological activities, enabling them to be used as perfect natural functional ingredients in antioxidant, antitumor, or anti-arthritic drugs. This study provides more references for pharmaphylogeny research and drug discovery from folk medicinal plants.

Keywords: Lamiaceae herb; biological activities; chemical composition; essential oil; folk medicinal plants.