Asian Research Thesis Index

Abstract

Essential oils are plant‘s secondary metabolites that are known for their fragrance and food flavour properties.These odoriferous oils offer a promising potential for multiple applications such as in the fields of agriculture, food, cosmetics, medicine, pharmaceutical industry and aromatherapy. Chemistry and biological attributes of essential oils are deemed to be varied not only among different varieties of the same plant speciesnevertheless different agro-climatic conditions also affect the biochemical composition of the oils due to morphological diversity of the plants.In the present dissertation, selected medicinal herbs such as Mentha spicata, Menthapiperitta, O.basilicum Lamiaceae] andC.citratus[Poaceae], harvested from different geographicalzones of Punjab, Pakistan, were evaluated for yield, physicochemical and biological potential of their oils which were produced by two different methods including hdrodistillation (HD) and supercritical fluid extraction (SCFE). Gas chromatography attached with flame ionization detector (FID) and Gas chromatography fitted with mass spectrometry (MS)analyses of chemical costituents of volatile oils showed the presence of different types of oxygenated monoterpene (OM), monoterpene hydrocarbon (MH), sesquiterpene hydrocarbon (SH), oxygenated sesquiterpene (OS) and phenyl propanoid (PP).Depending upon the isolation mode, the tested essential oils exhibited a promising extent of antioxidant and antimicrobial and hemolytic activities, total phenolics and total flavonoids contents.With respect to different harvesting such as drought stressed, hilly, arid and irrigated regions, the tested essential oils revealed considerable differences in yield, chemical composition, TPC, TFC and biological properties that can be linked to varying agro-ecological parameters of the regions under study.Generally, the essential oilsextracted from the drought stressed region leave samples presented superior antimicrobial and hemolytic actions while,samples from hilly regions exhibited a greater range of antioxidant potential and total phenolics and flavonoids. A significant variation noted in the percentage yield,volatiles chemical composition and biological properties/actionscan be related to theirvariable chemical profiling resulted from morphologicaldiversity of the plants.

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