Biological Activities of the Essential Oil and Methanol Extract of Achillea biebersteinii Afan. (Asteraceae).

The present work examined the in vitro antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of the essential oil and methanol extract from Achillea biebersteinii Afan. (Asteraceae). The essential oil exhibited antimicrobial activity against 8 bacteria, 14 fungi and the yeast C. albicans, whereas methanolic extract remained inactive. The antioxidative capacity of the samples was evaluated by using DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) and b-carotene/linoleic acid assays. In both assays, the extract showed better antioxidative capacity than the oil. The extract reduced the stable free radical DPPH with lower IC50 value (89.90 µg/ml) than the oil (8900 µg/ml). In the β-carotene/linoleic acid assay, the samples were not effectively able to inhibit the linoleic acid oxidation, exhibiting only 22.7% (the extract) and 16% (the essential oil) inhibitions at 2 mg/ml, far below than that of BHT (97.0%). Total phenolic constituent of the extract was 51 µg/mg (5.1%, w/w) as gallic acid equivalent. GC-MS analysis of the essential oil resulted in the identification of 64 components representing 92.24% of the oil. Piperitone, camphor and 1,8-cineole (eucalyptol) were the main constituents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]