Chemical Profiling of Essential Oil Composition and Biological Evaluation of Anethum graveolens L. (Seed) Grown in Thailand

Abstract

In this study, the essential oil of Anethum graveolens L. seed (AEo) was studied for their chemical composition, antioxidant potential, antimicrobial and anticancer activities. AEo was obtained from hydro-distillation and their composition was analyzed by GC-MS.  The major compositions of AEo are D-carvone, carvone, dill apiol and limonene. AEo was investigated for antioxidant activity by DPPH, ABTS, FRAP assay and measured total phenolic content by Folin-Ciocalteu colorimetric method.  Agar-well diffusion assay was used to study the anti-microbial activity and also agar-dilution and broth-micro dilution techniques were employed for minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) determination. In addition, the cytotoxicity and anticancer activity were evaluated on Green fluorescent protein (GFP) and Resazurin micro plate assay (REMA).  The results showed that AEo exhibited high total phenolic content (GAE= 4.5746 mg/mL) and antioxidant activities on DPPH (TEAC= 52.5391 mg/mL), ABTS (TEAC= 1.5936 mg/mL) and FRAP assay (TEAC= 0.5469 mg/mL) and also showed potent activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli at the MIC= 5.99 mg/mL.  Furthermore, AEo presented non-cytoxicity in normal cell whereas it exhibited greatly anti-cancer activity on KB-Oral cavity and MCF7-Breast cancer cells.

Keywords: Anethum graveolens L., antioxidant activity, antimicrobial activity, anticancer activity, chemical compositions