Chemical composition and antioxidant activity of essential oil of Cymbopogon flexuosus

Abstract

Cymbopogon species from the Poaceae family are widely distributed in the Himalayan region of India and commonly used as flavors, fragrances, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. It is known to contain compound citral, which give the lemon scent to many of the plants of the cymbopogon genera. The essential oil of Cymbopogon flexuosus has high polyphenolic content which is responsible for antioxidant properties. Beside citral is also used for the synthesis of vitamin B and Ionones. The bioactive potential of Lemongrass and constituent are rapidly increasing which is reflected from growing number of reports being published. The present study was to know the chemical composition and in vitro antioxidant activity of essential oil of C. flexuosus from Uttarakhand. The essential oils of Cymbopogon collected in the region of Uttarakhand were obtained by hydrodistillation of the leaves and analyzed for chemical composition by GC/MS. The antioxidant activity of essential oils at different concentrations was determined against DPPH radical activity and vitamin C as the standard antioxidant compound. The IC50 value and percentage of DPPH inhibition were recorded. Twenty-five compounds were identified in essential oil extracted from leaves representing 93.15% of the oil composition. The yield of essential oil of Cymbopogon was 0.6 + 0.1 %and the major compound in the essential oil was citral (a racemic mixture of two isoforms geranial and nearl) followed by heptenone(1.98%) , linalool(1.65%), geraniol (1.47%), ?-caryophyllene (1.14% ) , limonene (0.92%), nearl acetate (0.82%), citronellal(0.44 %) and citronellol (0.22%). Radical scavenging capacity (Inhibition, %) of the C. flexuosus essential oil was high (78.19+1.11) at the concentration level of 150 ?g/ml and IC50 value of the essential oil was 43.67?g/ml. The data of this study encourages to consider the essential oil of C. flexuosus as a source of bioactive compounds which may add great industrial value to this crop.