Chemical composition and antioxidant activity of petroleum ether fraction of Rosmarinus officinalis

Xiaojing Shen; Ming Zhou; Xingfan Zhu; Jiaojiao Zhang; Junju Xu; Weiwei Jiang

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e21316

Chemical composition and antioxidant activity of petroleum ether fraction of Rosmarinus officinalis

Heliyon. 2023 Oct 20;9(11):e21316. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e21316. eCollection 2023 Nov.

Authors

Xiaojing Shen¹, Ming Zhou¹, Xingfan Zhu¹, Jiaojiao Zhang¹, Junju Xu^{2

3}, Weiwei Jiang^{1

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ College of Science, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China.
² College of Tobacco Science, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Sustainable Utilization of Plateau Characteristic Spice Plant Resources, Education Department of Yunnan Province, Kunming, China.
⁴ Yunnan Characteristic Plant Extraction Laboratory, Kunming, 650106, China.

Abstract

The presented study examines the chemical composition and antioxidant activity of the petroleum ether fraction of Rosmarinus officinalis (PEF-RO), which was obtained via 75 % ethanol extraction followed by petroleum ether extraction. The obtained fractions were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The in vitro antioxidant activity of PEF-RO was investigated using various assays, including 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2'-azinobis-(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonate (ABTS) free radical scavenging, and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) method. A total of 82 chemical components were successfully identified, totaling 10.06 % of PEF-RO content. The identified components consisted of 24 hydrocarbons, 14 ketones, 16 alcohols, 4 phenols, 14 esters, and 10 other compounds. Notably, verbenone (2.4377 %), vitamin A (0.6854 %), trans-geraniol (0.5998 %), linolenic acid (0.5713 %), and 1,8-eucalyptol (0.5323 %) were the most abundant compounds, and there are many trace components in PEF-RO. PEF-RO's IC₅₀ values of DPPH and ABTS free radical scavenging were determined as 0.36 mg/mL and 0.19 mg/mL, respectively. FRAP-method was employed to measure the total antioxidant energy of PEF-RO, which displayed good antioxidant activity. The obtained data provides the foundation for the comprehensive development and utilization of Rosmarinus officinalis.

Keywords: Antioxidant; Chemical composition; Rosmarinus officinalis.