Chemical composition, antioxidant and antibacterial activities of the essential oils of medicinal plant Ammodaucus leucotrichus from Algeria

The essential oils from two populations in Algeria of the fruit of Ammodaucus leucotrichus were obtained by hydrodistillation and examined by GC and GC-MS. Fifty different compounds were determined in total and more than 95% of the essential oils were identified. The most abundant components were perillaldehyde (60.1% and 37.5%), limonene (6.9% and 29.2%), perilla alcohol (6.7% and 7.0%), methyl perillate (6.4% and 3.0%) and shybinol (4.3% and 6.9%) respectively. The oils were tested for their antioxidant activity by using the DDPH and β-carotene/linoleic acid assays. Both of these in vitro methods showed that the essential oils have a less powerful reducing than the well-known synthetic antioxidants, butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and E-Vitamin. The DPPH method showed a significant activity for both oils with IC50 values of 6.5 mg.mL−1 for sample (AL2) from Debdeb and 9.35 mg.mL−1 for sample (AL1) from Messaad. Also, the essential oils showed stronger activity against the tested Gram positive and negative bacteria. The minimum inhibitory concentration of the essential oils ranged from 0.046 mg.mL−1 to 0.750 mg.mL−1 for Gram-positive bacteria, and from 0.187 mg.mL−1 to 3.0 mg.mL−1 for Gram-negative bacteria.