Chemical composition and antibacterial activity of the essential oil from Agathis dammara (Lamb.) Rich fresh leaves

Abstract

The essential oil of fresh leaves from Agathis dammara (Lamb.) Rich was extracted using hydro-distillation, and GC-FID and GC–MS were used to analyse the essential oil. Nineteen compounds were identified, among which the major components were limonene (36.81%), β-bisabolene (33.43%) and β-myrcene (25.48%). In the antibacterial test, disc diffusion method and micro-well dilution assay proved that the essential oil had significant antibacterial activities. The inhibition zones against Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were 23.7 and 23 mm, respectively, which demonstrated that the inhibition effects were greater than positive control (10 μg/disc streptomycin). And the lowest MIC value of the essential oil was found against S. aureus (1.25 mg/mL) and Bacillus subtilis (1.25 mg/mL). This is the first report on the antibacterial activities of A. dammara essential oil.

Keywords:

• Agathis dammara
• essential oil
• GC/MS
• antibacterial activity

Acknowledgement

The authors are thankful to Dr. Zezheng Gao for help in samples collection.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number 2012ZM0035] and SRP (SCUT).