Essential oil in fruits of Peucedanum alsaticum L. and Peucedanum cervaria (L.) Lap. Composition and antibacterial activity

Peucedanum alsaticum L. and Peucedanum cervaria (L.) Lap are plants belonging to Apiaceae family. The composition of essential oils in fruits was investigated. Oils were obtained by used of hydrodistillation and head-space solid-phase microextraction and then analyzed by GC-MS method. Identification of the individual components was based on comparison of obtained mass spectra with those of standards and NIST libraries.

42 kind of compounds were identified among which α-pinene and sabinene were dominant in both species. HS-SPME method seems to be better for analysis since it gave higher or similar results, had very good sensitivity and needs less time and amount of sample.

The in vitro antibacterial activity of essential oils obtained from fruits of P. cervaria and P. alsaticum was evaluated against 10 reference microorganisms, including 6 Gram-positive (Staphylococcus epidermidis ATCC 122228, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, S. aureus ATCC 6538, Bacillus cereus ATCC 10876, Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633, Micrococcus luteus ATCC 10240) and 4 Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Klebsiella pneumoniae ATCC 13883, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 9027, Proteus mirabilis ATCC 12453). The minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were determined by agar dilution method using Mueller-Hinton agar. Both essential oils obtained from fruits of P. cervaria and P. alsaticum had no influence on the growth of Gram-negative bacteria even at the highest concentration tested (2000mg/l). Among Gram-positive bacteria only B. subtilis and M. luteus were sensitive to these oils (MIC=2000mg/l).