Antioxidant activity and Chemical compositions of essential oil of aerial parts of Satureja sahendica Bornm

Satureja (F: Labiatea) species are present in the worldwide. 12 Satureja species grow in Iran that 8 species are endemic. These plants are famous due to use as a culinary and medicinal plants. Methodes: In this research the aerial parts of Satureja sahendica were collected from east Azarbayejan provinence, Osku at E: 46 10 3.6, N: 37 43 52.7 and 2048 m heigh. The air dried parts of plants were kept at 2ºc up to used for GC analysis.The plant materials seprated to two different parts, inflorescence (S1), Leaf and stem(S2). 30 – 40 gr of each samples were subjected to hydro – distillation for 4 h using a clevenger – type apparatus to produce essential oil. Hydrodistillation was repeated thrice for each sample and average was calculated. The essential oil was found to be yellow liquid and was obtained in yields of 1.66 ± 0.19 for S1 and 1.5 ± 0.12 for S2 based on v/w. 28 compounds were identified in the oil of S1 that thymol (32.5 %), γ– terpinen (29.33 %) and p– cymene (23.48 %) are main constituents and 23 compounds were characterized in the oil of S2 that main constituents were p– cymene (44.88 %), thymol (28.22%) and γ– terpinen (10.07 %). The antioxidant activitities of S1 and S2 samples were assessed by DPPH assay and RC50 values were 7.38×10−2 and 7.15×10−2mg/ml, respectively. Investigations showed that the essential oil of aerial parts of S. sahendica had a high antioxidant activity and due to high amount of thymol and Pcymene and other terpenoids in the oil, it can be used as a culinary and medicinal plant and perfume industries.