GC–MS ANALYSIS FOR CHEMOTAXONOMIC CHARACTERIZATION AND BIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF ARTEMISIA ANNUA L.

Abstract

Artemisia annua L. is an important medicinal plant widely recognized for its diverse phytochemical constituents and broad range of biological activities. The chemical composition, functional-group characteristics and antimicrobial activity of the essential oil of A. annua harvested from Mansehra, Pakistan were studied. Hydro-distillation method was used for the extraction of essential oil from the plant material with the help of Clevenger apparatus. The qualitative and quantitative characterization of the volatile compounds was performed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and major functional groups in the oil were identified by the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The analysis by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) revealed the presence of 28 constituents accounting for about 95.5% of the total detected constituents. Chemically the essential oil was found to be very diversified and got higher percentage of the constituents (26.14% artemisia ketone, 24.70% β-caryophyllene, 10.66% camphor and 8.05% eucalyptol). FTIR confirmed the presence of hydroxyl, aliphatic C–H and carbonyl and C–O functional groups by looking at their characteristic absorbance bands. The biological activity essential oil tested by agar well diffusion with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) against selected microorganism. The essential oil was inhibitory for the tested microorganisms S. typhi, P. aeruginosa, E. coli, S. aureus, B. subtilis, P. mirabilis and Candida albicans. The overall conclusion is that A. annua EO has a wide range of volatile chemical constituents and has some antimicrobial activity. The GC–MS coupled with FTIR system offers valuable chemical data of the essential oil of A. annua and it facilitates the potential use of the essential oil in chemotaxonomic and biological research.