Chemical Profiling of Significant Antioxidant and Phytotoxic Microwave-Extracted Essential Oil from Araucaria heterophylla Resin

authored by

Ahmed M. Abd-ElGawad, Ibrahim Saleh, Mohamed H. Abd El-Razek, Asmaa S. Abd Elkarim, Yasser A. El-Amier, Tarik A. Mohamed, Abd El-Nasser G. El Gendy, Sherif M. Afifi, Tuba Esatbeyoglu, Abdelsamed I. Elshamy

Abstract

Due to the various hazards of using synthetic chemical compounds in pharmaceutics, agriculture, and industry, scientists and researchers do their best to explore and assess new green natural compounds from natural resources with potent activity. The essential oil (EO) from the resin collected from Araucaria heterophylla Salisb. was extracted by the microwave technique and chemically characterized via GC-MS analysis. Furthermore, the extract EO was assessed for its antioxidant and phytotoxic activities. The EO has 33 compounds, mainly terpenes (98.23%), and the major compounds were α-pinene (62.57%), β-pinene (6.60%), germacrene D (5.88%), and β-caryophyllene (3.56%). The extracted EO showed substantial antioxidant activity, where it showed IC

₅₀ values of 142.42 and 118.03 mg L

⁻¹ for DPPH and ABTS, respectively. On the other hand, the EO revealed considerable phytotoxicity against the weed Chenopodium murale, where the EO showed IC

₅₀ values of 304.0, 230.1, and 147.1 mg L

⁻¹, for seed germination, seedling shoot growth, and seedling root growth, respectively. Moreover, the EO showed the same pattern of allelopathic inhibition against the weed Sonchus oleraceus, where it showed IC

₅₀ values of 295.7, 224.5, and 106.1 mg L

⁻¹, for seed germination, seedling shoot growth, and seedling root growth, respectively. The present study showed that the extraction technique affects the constituents of the EO, particularly the quantitative composition. The EO of A. heterophylla resin also revealed considerable antioxidant and phytotoxic activity against weeds. Therefore, it can be considered a promising natural resource that could be integrated into the weed management approach. However, further study is recommended for deep characterization of their authentic compounds and evaluation of their mode of action(s) on a wide spectrum of weeds.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Food Science and Human Nutrition
Molecular Food Chemistry and Food Development

External Organisation(s)

Mansoura University
National Research Centre (NRC)
University of Sadat City

Type

Article

Journal

Separations

Volume

Publication date

18.02.2023

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Analytical Chemistry, Filtration and Separation

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.3390/separations10020141 (Access: Open)