Characterization of Volatile Compounds of Eleven Achillea Species from Turkey and Biological Activities of Essential Oil and Methanol Extract of A. hamzaoglui Arabacı & Budak

Abstract

According to distribution of genus Achillea, two main centers of diversity occur in S.E. Europe and S.W. Asia. Diversified essential oil compositions from Balkan Peninsula have been numerously reported. However, report on essential oils of Achillea species growing in Turkey, which is one of the main centers of diversity, is very limited. This paper represents the chemical compositions of the essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation from the aerial parts of eleven Achillea species, identified simultaneously by gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The main components were found to be 1,8-cineole, p-cymene, viridiflorol, nonacosane, α-bisabolol, caryophyllene oxide, α-bisabolon oxide A, β-eudesmol, 15-hexadecanolide and camphor. The chemical principal component analysis based on thirty compounds identified three species groups and a subgroup, where each group constituted a chemotype. This is the first report on the chemical composition of A. hamzaoglui essential oil; as well as the antioxidant and antimicrobial evaluation of its essential oil and methanolic extract.

Keywords: Achillea; Achillea hamzaoglui; Asteraceae; GC-MS; antimicrobial; antioxidant; essential oil; hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA); principal components analysis (PCA).

Figure 1

PCA biplot of major volatile compounds of eleven Achillea species according to the clusters (A–C) they belong to. Axes refer to scores for the samples and loadings from the volatile constituents represented as vectors from the origin. 1-Oct: 1-Octadecanol; 1,8-Cin: 1,8-Cineole; 15-Hex: 15-Hexadecanolide; α-BisA: α-Bisabolon oxide A; α-Bis: α-Bisabolol; α-Ter: α-Terpineol; β-Eud: β-Eudesmol; p-Cym: p-Cymene; Bor: Borneol; Bor-a: Bornyl acetate; Campe: Camphene, Cam: Camphor; Car-I: Caryophylla-2(12),6-dien-5α-ol; Car-II: Caryophylla-2(12),6-dien-5β-ol; Cardi-I: Caryophylla-2(12),6(13)-dien-5β-ol; Cardi-II: Caryophylla-2(12),6(13)-dien-5α-ol; Car-o: Caryophyllene oxide; (E)-Ner: (E)-Nerolidol; Ger D: Germacrene D; Hepta: Heptacosane; Hex-a: Hexadecanoicacid; Hhfa: Hexahydrofarnesyl acetone; Lin: Linalool; Muur: Muurola-4,10(14)-dien-1-ol; Nona: Nonacosane; Penta: Pentacosane; Spa: Spathulenol; Ter-4-ol: Terpinen-4-ol; Tri: Tricosane; and Vir: Viridiflorol.

Figure 2

Dendrogram obtained by HCA based on the Euclidean distance between groups of the essential oils of eleven Achillea species growing in Turkey. A. setacea essential oil was characterized by the highest percentages of two main components in group A: α-bisabolon oxide A and hexadecanoic acid (27% and 16.4%, respectively) and a moderate content of α-bisabolol (4.8%). The essential oil of A. millefolium subsp. millefolium essential oil was characterized by the highest percentages of α-bisabolol and muurola-4,10(14)-dien-1-ol (11.7% and 6.8%, respectively) as well as its caryophyllene oxide and hexadecanoic acid content (7.7% and 4.6%, respectively) while A. hamzaoglui essential oil was characterized by the highest levels of 1,8-cineol, linalool, germacrene D (24.1%, 12.2% and 6.2%, respectively) in group A.