Chemical Profiling, Antimicrobial and Anti-malarial Activity of Leaf Essential Oil of Eugenia rottleriana Wt. & Arn. (Myrtaceae)

Abstract

The pantropical genus Eugenia belonging to the family Myrtaceae has about 1,000 species distributed mainly in the New World and 13 species of Eugenia reported from Peninsular India. Eugenia rottleriana is a small tree and endemic to South Western Ghats and found in evergreen forests at low altitude. The essential oils from several species of this genus have medicinal properties. Many medicinal plants are frequently used in traditional medicine because of their essential oils have been known to possess biological activity and used for the treatment of microbial infections due to the presence of certain compounds. In the present study we focused on GC/MS chemical profiling, antimicrobial and anti-malarial screening of leaf essential oil of Eugenia rottleriana. In GC/MS analysis, E. rottleriana showed six major and 25 minor compounds. The antimicrobial potential of the essential oil were evaluated by disk diffusion method against selected microorganisms such as Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumonia, Escherichia coli, Candida albicans and Candida glabrata. The oil at high concentration (200µg/ml) showed high inhibitory activity against all the test microorganisms and higher zone of inhibition recorded against Candida glabrata. In addition, the different concentrations of essential oil were assayed for larvicidal activity against Anopheles stephensi. All the concentrations showed larvicidal activity after 24hrs exposure of larvae. The current study found that the E. rottleriana essential oil has a commercial potential for antimicrobial and anti-malarial products.