Composition and antimicrobial activity of Pastinaca sativa subsp. sativa, P. sativa subsp. urens and P. hirsuta essential oils

ABSTRACT

Composition and antimicrobial activity of root, leaf, stem, flower and fruit essential oils from cultivated Pastinaca sativa subsp. sativa, and its two wild-growing relatives P. sativa subsp. urens and P. hirsuta (Apiaceae) were investigated. Twenty-nine hydrodistilled essential oils of plants from different localities and/or years were analysed by GC-FID and GC/MS. Dominant in root oils was myristicin (P. sativa) or apiole (P. hirsuta), in leaf and stem oils myristicin (cultivated plants) or γ-palmitolactone (wild-growing plants) and in flower and fruit oils aliphatic esters. Multivariate statistics (PCA, nMDS, UPGMA clustering) generally revealed separation of oils of investigated Pastinaca taxa and demonstrated their chemosystematic significance. One oil per each organ of all three plants (fifteen in total) was tested using microdilution method for activity against Candida tropicalis, C. parapsilosis, C. krusei, C. glabrata, C. albicans, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, Salmonella Typhimurium and Enterobacter cloacae; MIC = 0.25–8 mg/mL, MBC(MFC) = 0.5–16 mg/mL.

KEYWORDS:

• Pastinaca spp.
• essential oils
• GC-FID and GC/MS
• multivariate statistics
• antimicrobial activity
• microdilution method

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia through Grant Agreements with University of Belgrade – Faculty of Pharmacy No: 451-03-68/2022-14/200161 and Institute for Biological Research “Siniša Stanković” - National Institute of Republic of Serbia, University of Belgrade No: 451-03-68/2022-14/200007. The authors are grateful to Prof. Dr Maria Couladis and Prof. Dr Olga Tzakou (Section of Pharmacognosy and Chemistry of Natural Products, Department of Pharmacy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece) for recording of chromatograms of three essential oils of P. hirsuta collected in 2007, and to Dr Vladimir Filipović (Institute for Medicinal Plant Research “Dr Josif Pančić”, Belgrade, Serbia) for providing P. sativa subsp. sativa samples from year 2018.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10412905.2022.2147675.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia [451-03-68/2022-14/200007,451-03-68/2022-14/200161].