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Seasonal variation in the chemical composition, antioxidant activity, and total phenolic content of Artemisia absinthium essential oils

1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 1★★ Corresponding author

  1. 1Natural Products and Medicinal Plants Research Center, North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences
  2. 2Northern Khorasan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center, Bojnurd
  3. 3Faculty of Medicine

CORRESPONDENCE

H. Kamali

Natural Products and Medicinal Plants Research Center, North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences

kamalih931@mums.ac.ir

Volume 7, Issue 4 · pp. 329-334 · 2015 · DOI: 10.4103/0974-8490.158441

ABSTRACT

The genus Artemisia belonging to the Compositae (Asteraceae) family and many traditional uses from the Artemisia species were reported. Artemisia absinthium is one of the species in this genus and commonly used in the food industry in the preparation of aperitifs, bitters, and spirits. Evaluation of the effect of different harvesting stages on the composition of essential oil and antioxidant capacity of A. absinthium. Essential oils from the aerial parts of A. absinthium, collected in three stages (preflowering, flowering, and after-flowering) from plants grown in the North Khorasan province of Iran were obtained by steam distillation and the chemical composition of the oils was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and antioxidant activity and total phenolic content were determined by 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl assay and Folin-Ciocalteu method. Analysis of the isolated oils revealed the presence of 44 compounds, mainly alpha-pinene, sabinene, beta-pinene, alpha-phellandrene, p-cymene and chamazulene. Alpha-phellandrene, and chamazulene were major compounds in preflowering stage, but beta-pinene and alpha-phellandrene were major in flowering and past-flowering stages. Flowering stage had highest yield and after flowering stage had lowest yield. The essential oil of preflowering stage had the highest amount of antioxidant compound (chamazulene). Preflowering stage with highest amount of phenolic compounds had the strongest antioxidant activity with the lowest amount of EC50. This study showed that the harvesting stage had significant effects on chemical composition and antioxidant properties of essential oils, and chamazulene is main compound for antioxidant activity in A. absinthium.

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    Mohammadi, A., Sani, T. A., Ameri, A. A., Imani, M., Golmakani, E., & Kamali, H. (2015). Seasonal variation in the chemical composition, antioxidant activity, and total phenolic content of Artemisia absinthium essential oils. Pharmacognosy Research, 7(4), 329-334. https://doi.org/10.4103/0974-8490.158441

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    © 2015 Author(s)

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0