Cytotoxicity and effect of extraction methods on the chemical composition of essential oils of Moringa oleifera seeds

Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B, Aug 2015

Renewed interest in natural materials as food flavors and preservatives has led to the search for suitable essential oils. Moringa oleifera seed essential oil was extracted by solvent-free microwave and hydrodistillation. This study assessed its chemical constituents. Cytotoxicity of the oils was investigated using hatchability and lethality tests on brine shrimps. A total of 16 and 26 compounds were isolated from the hydrodistillation extraction (HDE) and solvent-free microwave extraction (SME) oils, respectively, which accounted for 97.515% and 97.816% of total identifiable constituents, respectively. At 24 h when the most eggs had hatched, values of the SME (56.7%) and HDE (60.0%) oils were significantly different (P<0.05) from those of sea water (63.3%) and chloramphenicol (15.0%). Larva lethality was different significantly (P<0.05) between HDE and SME oils at different concentrations and incubation periods. The median lethal concentration (LC50) of the oils was >1000 mg/ml recommended as an index for non-toxicity, which gives the oil advantage over some antioxidant, antimicrobial, therapeutic, and preservative chemicals.

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Cytotoxicity and effect of extraction methods on the chemical composition of essential oils of Moringa oleifera seeds

J Zhejiang Univ-Sci B (Biomed & Biotechnol) 1673-1581 Cytotoxicity and effect of extraction methods on the chemical composition of essential oils of Moringa oleifera seeds Rowland Monday Ojo KAYODE 0 Anthony Jide AFOLAYAN 0 0 (Medicinal Plant and Economic Development Research Centre, Department of Botany, University of Fort Hare , Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700 , South Africa) Renewed interest in natural materials as food flavors and preservatives has led to the search for suitable essential oils. Moringa oleifera seed essential oil was extracted by solvent-free microwave and hydrodistillation. This study assessed its chemical constituents. Cytotoxicity of the oils was investigated using hatchability and lethality tests on brine shrimps. A total of 16 and 26 compounds were isolated from the hydrodistillation extraction (HDE) and solvent-free microwave extraction (SME) oils, respectively, which accounted for 97.515% and 97.816% of total identifiable constituents, respectively. At 24 h when the most eggs had hatched, values of the SME (56.7%) and HDE (60.0%) oils were significantly different (P<0.05) from those of sea water (63.3%) and chloramphenicol (15.0%). Larva lethality was different significantly (P<0.05) between HDE and SME oils at different concentrations and incubation periods. The median lethal concentration (LC50) of the oils was >1000 mg/ml recommended as an index for non-toxicity, which gives the oil advantage over some antioxidant, antimicrobial, therapeutic, and preservative chemicals. Moringa oleifera seed; Extraction methods; Essential oil; Cytotoxicity doi; 10; 1631/jzus; B1400303 Document code; A CLC number; Q946 1 Introduction Moringa oleifera Lamarch is one of the most widely distributed and naturalized species of the monogeneric family Moringaceae (Ramachandran et al., 1980) . The plant is known for its nutritional and medicinal value. It contains some phytochemicals, which make it a good source of antioxidant and antimicrobial substances. The leaves, pod, and seed are now being used as a food commodity in some tropical countries where protein malnutrition exists. Moringa leaves are reported to be a rich source of β-carotene, protein, vitamin C, calcium, and potassium, which makes it a good source of natural antioxidants and thus may enhance the shelf-life of fat-containing foods due to the presence of various types of antioxidant compounds such as ascorbic acids, flavonoids, phenolics, and carotenoids (Dillard and German, 2000; Siddhuraju and Becker, 2003) . The ethanolic extract of the seed has shown the presence of some bioactive compounds such as benzyl carbamate, benzyl isothiocyanate, niazimicin, sitosterol, and niazirin (Guevara et al., 1999). In recent times, there has been growing interest in Moringa plant propagation for industrial application in developing countries like Nigeria. Essential oils are aromatic and volatile compounds found in most parts of plant materials such as the leaves, seed, flower, bark, fruit, and peel (Sánchez et al., 2010) . The chemical compositions of essential oils are secondary metabolites, which play important roles in a plant’s defense against microbial attacks and have been added to foods as spices for decades (Hyldgaard et al., 2012) . The active compounds in essential oils have been broadly divided into four groups according to their chemical structures. The first group is terpenes such as limonene, p-cymene, sabinene, terpinene, and pinene. Terpenes are hydrocarbons produced from a combination of several isoprene units (C5H8), and are synthesized in the cytoplasm of plant cells; they have a hydrocarbon backbone, which can be rearranged into cyclic structures by cyclases, thus forming monocyclic or bicyclic structures (Caballero et al., 2003) . The main terpenes are monoterpenes (C10H16) and sesquiterpenes (C15H24), although other chains such as diterpenes (C20H32), triterpenes (C30H40), and even longer chains exist (Hyldgaard et al., 2012) . The second group is terpenoids such as thymol, citronellal, piperitone, carvacrol, linalyl acetate, and menthol. Terpenoids are terpenes that undergo biochemical modification via enzymes that incorporate oxygen molecules and shift or remove methyl groups (Caballero et al., 2003) . According to Caballero et al. (2003) and Hyldgaard et al. (2012) , terpenoids are subdivided into alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, esters, ethers, epoxides, and phenols. The third group is phenylpropenes, which constitute a subfamily among the various groups of organic compounds called phenylpropanoids that are synthesized from the amino acid precursor phenylalanines in plants. Phenylpropanoids have their names from the six-carbon aromatic phenol group and the three-carbon propene tail of cinnamic acid, produced in the first step of phenylpropanoid biosynthesis (Hyldgaard et al., 2012) . In addition, there are essential oils, which contain a number of different degradation products originating from unsatur (...truncated)


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Rowland Monday Ojo Kayode, Anthony Jide Afolayan. Cytotoxicity and effect of extraction methods on the chemical composition of essential oils of Moringa oleifera seeds, Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B, 2015, pp. 680-689, Volume 16, Issue 8, DOI: 10.1631/jzus.B1400303