Activities of essential oils from Asarum heterotropoides var. mandshuricum against five phytopathogens
Introduction
In recent decades, plant products have come to be exploited as botanical pesticides because they are more biodegradable than synthetic pesticides (Duke, 1990). In addition, many pathogens have become a serious threat to crops due to their resistance to known chemical control agents including benzimidazoles, demethylation inhibitors, Qo respiration inhibitors and dicarboximides (Ma and Michailides, 2005, Ishii, 2006). This has occasioned a growing effort in the search for new bioactive products (Duke, 1990, Gigante et al., 2002). A great number of plant essential oils exhibit antimycotic properties and are potential antifungal products (Deans et al., 1989, Lee et al., 2008, Chang et al., 2008). One such essential oil is that from Asarum heterotropoides F. Schmidt var. mandshuricum (Maxim.) Kitag (Maximowicz) Kitagawa (Aristolochiaceae) (Liu et al., 2007, Wang et al., 2008).
A. heterotropoides var. mandshuricum, a perennial herb endemic to China, is a traditional Chinese medicine by the name of Xixin (Huang et al., 2003). It can be found in forests, mountain slopes, valleys and moist shady areas. It is occasionally cultivated in the Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning and South China regions (Huang et al., 2003). Its essential oil is used for analgesic, antitussive, and anti-allergic purposes in China (Hashimoto et al., 1994). The components in the essential oil had been investigated (Zeng et al., 2004, Zhang et al., 2004) and a total of 82 components were identified, of which methyleugenol was found to be the most abundant (Kosuge et al., 1978, Zeng et al., 2004).
In previous investigations, this essential oil was found to possess the promising antifungal activity against a variety of plant pathogens (Liu et al., 2007, Wang and Ji, 2007, Wang et al., 2008). However, the antifungal constituents in the oil were not determined. Nevertheless, we could assume that methyleugenol might be the main constituent responsible for the bioactivity of the A. heterotropoides var. mandshuricum essential oil from the following facts: the compound is not only the most abundant component of this oil, but it is also widely distributed in the other aromatic plants which possess a wide spectrum of activities against microorganisms ranging from bacteria to fungi (Kivanç, 1988); its antifungal activity against Botrytis cinerea Pers and Colletotrichum fragariae Brooks had been reported in Artemisia dracunculus L. var. dracunculus by Meepagala et al. (2002). In order to verify our assumption and elucidate the main constituents responsible for the activity of the oil, we analyzed the essential oil of A. heterotropoides var. mandshuricum by GC/MS, evaluated the antifungal activity of the oil and methyleugenol against five representatives of plant pathogens causing great damages in crops, and explored the mode of action of the main active component.
Section snippets
Plant materials
Dried whole plant of A. heterotropoides var. mandshuricum was collected from Xinbin Manchus (N 125.6°, E 41.42°), Liaoning, China. A voucher specimen (No. 262) was deposited in the herbarium of the Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, China.
Preparation of essential oils and chemical reference substance
Dried plant material (600 g) was chopped into small pieces and subjected to hydrodistillation for 8 h, using a Clevenger-type apparatus to yield 6.87 g (1.15%) of a light brown oil. The essential oil was dissolved in
Major chemical components of the essential oil
In total, 32 peaks were detected by GC/MS and only the major constituents are shown in Table 1. Seven compounds were identified by GC/MS and by the retention indexes, including terpenes and phenylpropanes. The oil was dominated by methyleugenol (59.42%), eucarvone (24.10%), 5-allyl-1,2,3-trimethoxybenzene (5.72%) and 3,7,7-trimethylbicyclo(4.1.0)hept-3-ene (4.93%), and also included 2,6,6-trimethylbicyclo(3.1.1)hept-2-ene (0.42%), (1S)-(1)-beta-pinene (0.75%), and 1,3-dimethoxy-5-methylbenzene
Discussion
The main results in the present study was consistent with those previous investigations in which, the essential oil of A. heterotropoides var. mandshuricum exhibited antifungal activities against pathogens such as Gloeosporium sp., Pestalotiopsis sp., Actinonema rosae (Lib.) Fr., Alternaria spp., Fusarium spp., Bipolaris spp., Curvularia lunata (Wakker) Boedijn Ustilago maydis (DC.) Corda with IC50 values <400 μg ml−1 (Liu et al., 2007, Wang and Ji, 2007). However, the activity of the essential
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the IMPLAD foundation (1391) and the National Key Technology R&D Program (2006BAI09B03). We thank Ms. Chen H. J. in Chinese Forest University for GC/MS analysis, and Mr. Jia W.J. and Ms. Liu M.F. for TEM. Authors are thankful to Prof. Wei X.Y. and Prof. Liu X.Z. for reading the manuscript.
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