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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Albany, California » Western Regional Research Center » Healthy Processed Foods Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #298100
Title: Chemical composition and antioxidant activity of Lippia alba essential oil obtained by supercritical CO2 and hydrodistillation

Author
item REYES-SOLANO, LAURA - Center For Research In Food And Development (CIAD)
item Breksa, Andrew
item VALDEZ-TORRES, J. BENIGNO - Center For Research In Food And Development (CIAD)
item ANGULO-ESCALANTE, MIGUEL - Center For Research In Food And Development (CIAD)
item HEREDIA, BASILIO - Center For Research In Food And Development (CIAD)

Submitted to: African Journal of Biotechnology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/12/2017
Publication Date: 4/26/2017
Citation: Reyes-Solano, L., Breksa III, A.P., Valdez-Torres, J., Angulo-Escalante, M., Heredia, B. 2017. Chemical composition and antioxidant activity of Lippia alba essential oil obtained by supercritical CO2 and hydrodistillation. African Journal of Biotechnology. 16(17):962-970. https://doi.org/10.5897/AJB2017.15945.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5897/AJB2017.15945

Interpretive Summary: Lippia alba is an aromatic plant endogenous to Central and South America. In an effort to determine if Lippia alba could be used as a source for the isolation of value-added compounds that contribute to health, flavour or shelf-life, the essential oil derived from this plant was evaluated against commercial available essential oils. The evaluation included analyses by gas chromatography for the identification of flavouring agents and health promoting compounds and colorimetric assays to measure the presence of anti-oxidants. Lippia alba showed little potential as a commercial source for the isolation of naturally occurring bioactives because antioxidants levels found in the Lippia alba essential oil samples were lower than those found in commercially available materials and multiple flavouring components rather than few major components were present. These results do not exclude the potential use of the Lippia alba essential oil as a flavouring agent or natural food preservative.

Technical Abstract: Lippia alba extracts from Mexico were obtained by hydrodistillation (HD) and supercritical fluid (SFE) extraction methods. The extracts were analyzed by gas chromatography using flame ionization and mass spectrometric detections. Antioxidant activity was tested by two methods (DPPH and ABTS) and total soluble phenolics (TSP) were determined according to the Folin-Ciocalteu method. Fourteen compounds were identified in the SFE extract. The major compounds were myrcenone (3.4%), a-terpineol (1.0%) and B-caryophyllene (2.3%) while by hydrodistillation, seventeen compoundswere identified . The major compounds were eucalyptol (15.6%), myrcenone (9.3%) and (Z)-ocimenone (5.8%). Lippia alba extracts belonged to the tagetenone chemotype. The results showed that Lippia alba extract obtained by SFE was IC50=17.35 ±0.92 mg/mL and by HD was IC50 = 12.45 ± 0.57 mg/mL in DPPH assay. SFE extract showed 55.2 ± 1.6 Tr Eq µmol/g and HD extract 15.6 ± 0.1 Tr Eq µmol/g in ABTS assay. TSP content was 137.5 ± 1.6 GA Eq µmol/g and 84.0 ± 4.7 GA Eq µmol/g in HD and SFE respectively. Five commercial oils were also tested and their results compared to those obtained from the Lippia alba extracts.