Planta Med 2011; 77 - PM207
DOI: 10.1055/s-0031-1282965

Fatty acid composition and antioxidant activity of Pistacia lentiscus L. fixed oil

F Mezni 1, A El Khorchani 1, M Boussaid 2, ML Khouja 1, A Khaldi 1
  • 1National Institute for Researches on Rural Engineering, Water and Forests, INRGREF, BP.10 Ariana 2080, Tunisia
  • 2National Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology, INSAT. BP 676–1080, Tunis Cedex, Tunisia

Pistacia lentiscus L. is known by its essential oil and its mastic. The fixed oil extracted from fruits is used in traditional medicine for stomach diseases and wound healing.

This study aims to determine the fatty acid composition and the antioxidant activity of Pistacia lentiscus fixed oil extracted from different parts of mature fruits.

The work was performed on three different parts of the fruit: the envelope, seed and whole fruit harvested from Nefza located in North West of Tunisia. The extraction was done by the Soxhlet Apparatus.

The determination of the fatty acid composition, done by GC/MS, showed the presence of five principal fatty acids: oleic, palmitic, linoleic, palmitoleic and stearic acids. The major fatty acid is the oleic that present more than 53%, palmitic and linoleic acids present respectively 25 and 15%. The difference between fatty acid composition of oil extracted from envelope, seed and whole fruit was not significant.

The antioxidant activity was determined by the DPPH test and the Trolox Equivalent Antioxidant Capacity (TEAC) for oils extracted from the different parts of fruit. A significant difference was determined and the highest antioxidant activity value was reached by oil extracted from whole fruit with a percentage of inhibition of DPPH about 9.67% and about 7% for both envelope and seed oil. Similarly, the highest value of TEAC was reached by whole fruit oil with about 2.32ng of Trolox/g of oil.

Acknowledgement: This study was financially supported by IRDC -Canada (105568–006) and WWF-Tunisia