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. 2021 May 13;10(5):969.
doi: 10.3390/plants10050969.

Citral-Containing Essential Oils as Potential Tyrosinase Inhibitors: A Bio-Guided Fractionation Approach

Francesca Capetti  1 , Massimo Tacchini  2 , Arianna Marengo  1 , Cecilia Cagliero  1 , Carlo Bicchi  1 , Patrizia Rubiolo  1 , Barbara Sgorbini  1
Affiliations

Citral-Containing Essential Oils as Potential Tyrosinase Inhibitors: A Bio-Guided Fractionation Approach

Francesca Capetti et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Excessive melanin production causes serious dermatological conditions as well as minor aesthetic problems (i.e., freckles and solar lentigo). The downregulation of tyrosinase is a widespread approach for the treatment of such disorders, and plant extracts have often proven to be valuable sources of tyrosinase inhibitors. Citral (a mixture of neral and geranial) is an important fragrance ingredient that has shown anti-tyrosinase potential. It is highly concentrated in the essential oils (EOs) of Cymbopogon schoenanthus (L.) Spreng., Litsea cubeba (Lour.) Pers., Melissa officinalis L., and Verbena officinalis L. However, only L. cubeba EO has been investigated for use as a potential skin-whitening agent. This work evaluates the in vitro tyrosinase inhibitory activity of these EOs and studies, using bio-assay oriented fractionation, whether their differing chemical compositions influence the overall EO inhibitory activities via possible synergistic, additive, and/or competitive interactions between EOs components. The inhibitory activity of C. schoenanthus EO and that of M. officinalis EOs, with negligible (+)-citronellal amounts, were in-line with their citral content. On the other hand, L. cubeba and V. officinalis EOs inhibited tyrosinase to considerably greater extents as they contained β-myrcene, which contributed to the overall EO activities. Similar observations were made for M. officinalis EO, which bears high (+)-citronellal content which increased citral activity.

Keywords: citral; essential oils; tyrosinase inhibition.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
GC-MS profiles of Cymbopogon schoenanthus (batch 2020), Litsea cubeba (batch 2020), Verbena officinalis (batch 2020), and Melissa officinalis 1 essential oils. Legend: (1) tricyclene, (2) α-pinene, (3) camphene, (4) sabinene, (5) β-pinene, (6) 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, (7) β-myrcene, (8) limonene, (9) 1,8-cineole, (10) cis-β-ocimene, (11) trans-β-ocimene, (12) 4-nonanone, (13) linalool, (14) citronellal, (15) nerol, (16) neral, (17) geraniol, (18) geranial, (19) ISTD (C13), (20) geranyl acetate, (21) trans-β-caryophyllene, (22) trans-isoeugenol, (23) γ-cadinene, (24) caryophyllene oxide. For analysis conditions, see Section 3.4.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Percentage of tyrosinase inhibition for each investigated EO tested at a concentration of 166.7 µg/mL. Legend: Cs: Cymbopogon schoenanthus (batch 2020); Lc: Litsea cubeba (batch 2020); Mo,1: Melissa officinalis 1; Mo,2: Melissa officinalis 2; Mo,3: Melissa officinalis 3; Vo: Verbena officinalis (bacth 2020).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of the percentage of experimentally measured enzymatic inhibition and the enzymatic inhibition expected with citral as the only bioactive compound in the essential oils. Legend: Cs: Cymbopogon schoenanthus (batch 2020); Lc: Litsea cubeba (batch 2020); Mo,1: Melissa officinalis 1; Mo,2: Melissa officinalis 2; Mo3: Melissa officinalis 3; Vo: Verbena officinalis (batch 2020).
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