Phytochemical profiling of essential oils extracted from Myristica fragrans, Illicium verum, Syzygium aromaticum, Foeniculum vulgare, and Cinnamomum cassia using TLC, HPTLC, GC techniques and evaluation of their antimicrobial activities

Abstract

Background: Essential oils constitute a major class of natural products. They possess various biological activities like anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, analgesic, and antimicrobial activities and have immense application in food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. In the current study, the essential oils were extracted from six medicinal plants including Myristica fragrans (endosperm of the seed or karnel and the mace), Illicium verum, Syzygium aromaticum, Foeniculum vulgare, and Cinnamomum cassia. The phytochemical profiling was carried out by using TLC derivatization, HPTLC fingerprinting, and GC analysis. The antibacterial and anti-fungal activity was evaluated by agar-well diffusion method. The antioxidant activity was evaluated by DPPH based TLC-bioautograph method. Results: Each of the essential oils showed a different pattern of fingerprint on TLC, HPTLC and GC chromatogram due to their unique phytochemical composition. All of the above essential oils demonstrated promising antimicrobial activity against the tested pathogenic bacteria (E. coli and S. aureus) and fungus (C. albicans and A. brasiliensis) in various extents. The essential oil extracted from M. fragrance, C. cassia and S. aromaticum showed prominent antioxidants as per the TLC visualization after DPPH derivatization. Conclusion: TLC, HPTLC and GC showed unique fingerprints of each of the essential oils. The promising antimicrobial activity and antioxidant activity infer that these essential oils could be explored further for their therapeutic potential as new antimicrobial and antioxidant leads and as a natural food preservative in substitution to various synthetic preservatives.