Chemical Composition and Antimicrobial Activity of the Essential Oil from Oleoresin of Protium neglectum

Abstract

The hydrodistilled oil from the oleoresin of Protium neglectum S., was analyzed be GC_MS. The yield of the resin oil was 1.0% (w/W), in the twenty-eigth compounds were identified, accounting for 99.3% of the total oil. The most abundant compuonds were the oxynenated monoterpenes (78.4), with piperitone (25.4%) as the major constituent, follwed by thymol (17.5%), durenol (15.6%), methyl eugenol (9.2%), terpineol (6.9%) and p-cymene (5.2%). The antimicrobial activity using the disk susceptibility test as well as the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) on four pathogenic and non pathogenic Gram (+) and Gram (-) was screened. It was found that the essencial oil from the resin exhibited antimicrobial activity on the Gram (+) bacteria, especially against Bacillus subtilis.