Chemical composition of leaf essential oil of hedyosmum arborescens and evaluation of its anticancer activity

Abstract

The essential oil of Hedyosmum arborescens Sw. (Chloranthaceae), a native plant of the Caribbean archipelago, was extracted by hydrodistillation. The chemical composition of the volatile fraction was determined by GC and GC-MS analyses and 50 components were identified. The major components are α-phellandrene (11.4%), bicyclogermacrene (10.6%) and sabinene (9.7%). The anticancer activities of these extracts were assessed against human lung carcinoma cell line A-549 and human colon adenocarcinoma cell line DLD-1. The leaf essential oil of H. arborescens was found to be moderately active against both cancer cell lines with GI50 values of 158 ± 7 μg/mL for A-549 and 178 ± 9 μg/mL for DLD-1.