Nigella damascena L. Essential Oil-A Valuable Source of ?-Elemene for Antimicrobial Testing.

ABSTRACT: The most commonly used plant source of ?-elemene is Curcuma wenyujin Y. H. Chen & C. Ling (syn. of Curcuma aromatic Salisb.) with its content in supercritical CO? extract up to 27.83%. However, the other rich source of this compound is Nigella damascena L. essential oil, in which ?-elemene accounts for 47%. In this work, the effective protocol for preparative isolation of ?-elemene from a new source-N. damascena essential oil-using high performance counter-current chromatography HPCCC was elaborated. Furthermore, since sesquiterpens are known as potent antimicrobials, the need for finding new agents designed to combat multi-drug resistant strains was addressed and the purified target compound and the essential oil were tested for its activity against a panel of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, fungi, and mycobacterial strains. The application of the mixture of petroleum ether, acetonitrile, and acetone in the ratio 2:1.5:0.5 (v/v) in the reversed phase mode yielded ?-elemene with high purity in 70 min. The results obtained for antimicrobial assay clearly indicated that N. damascena essential oil and isolated ?-elemene exert action against Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain H37Ra.

SUBMITTER: Sieniawska E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6017462 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature