2020 ITALIAN JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE 2020 32(卷), 4(期), (983-996页)
The purpose of this work is to assess the antioxidant and the antibacterial activities of essential oil from flowers of Rhanterium suaveolens Desf. and to investigate its chemical composition. The GC-MS analysis revealed the identification of a total of thirty-one compounds representing 98.4% of the total oil. Spa thulenol (18.3%), carvacrol (12.1%), linalool (9.4%), alpha-terpineol (7.10%), alpha-terpinolene (6.3%) and pinocarvone (5.6%) were identified as major constituents. The tested oil exhibited weak activities in both DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging assays and ferric reducing power test. However, it showed a good lipid peroxidation activity using the beta-carotene/linoleic acid assay with an IC50 value of 26.20 +/- 1.01 mu g/mL. In addition, the highest antibacterial effect was recorded against Staphylococcus aureus ((MIC=37.5 mu g/mL). These findings show that essential oil of R. suaveolens flowers can be used as a promising source of natural food and drug preservatives.