Antimicrobial, antioxidant and cytotoxic properties of essential oil of Anethum graveolens L.

Essential oils with good antioxidant properties could be used for therapeutic, nutritional and food preservation purposes. With the increasing use of medicinal plant products, different aspects need to be considered in terms of useful applications and their potential harm to human health. In the present study, antimicrobial, antioxidative and cytotoxic properties of fresh and commercial essential oils of Anethum graveolens L. were studied. The bacterial strains sensitive to Anethum graveolens oils were in the following order: Candida albicans> S. aureus> E. coli> P. aeruginosa. The minimum inhibitory and bactericidal concentrations of the oils were determined. The essential oils had good bactericidal and bacteriostatic properties except for Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Antioxidative properties of the oils were studied using DPPH free radical scavenging and beta-carotene bleaching tests and the results were compared with standard synthetic antioxidants. Lipid peroxidation inhibitions were comparable to the synthetic antioxidants of BHT and BHA. The oil concentration required for 50% free radical scavenging (IC50) was 6.7 μg/ml with total phenol contents of 174.91 μg GAE/mg for fresh oil of A. graveolens, while they were 10.53 μg/ml and 4.34 GAE/mg respectively for the commercial oil. The volatile oils from fresh and commercial A. graveolens displayed cytotoxic effects on human peripheral blood cells (lymphocytes) with IC50 of 7 and 3042μg/ml and on human tumor cell line (HeLa cells) with IC50 of 8.51 μg/ml and 205.65 μg/ml respectively. The results show that essential oils of A. graveolens could be used with caution and after determining the dose