Lamiaceae family

Most of the plants, collected from Lamiaceae family, are aromatic and grown in Aegean-Mediterranean regions (West-South Anatolia). These are Salvia, Sideritis, Thymus, Origanum, Satureja, Stachys, Micromeria, Nepeta etc. 

Among Lamiaceae family plants, except 4/wg postii, none of the species gave hit in the yeast based assay. However, a few Salvia species (S. triloba, S. blepharo-chlaena, S. syriaca), and a few Sideritis species (S. aytachii, S. lycia) showed high inhibition against at least one or two tested yeasts among the three yeasts nsed in DNA damaging microtiter assay (Table 6.1). 

The two diastereomers of cis- and rmws-piperitone oxide are 1,2-epoxy-3-keto-p-menthanes, which have been found in various plant species. The most abundant natural sources of these compounds are plants belonging to the Lamiaceae family, especially Mentha and Calamintha In many publications, the authors gave no details on the diastereomeric composition of piperitone oxides, probably because of their very similar retention times on a non-polar column. 

Zgorka, G. Glowniak, K. 2001. Variation of free phenolic acids in medicinal plants belonging to the Lamiaceae family. J. Pharm. Biomed. Anal. 26 79-87. 

Composition As a member of the Lamiaceae family the genus Ocimum is characterised by chemical polymorphism. For O. basilicum several chemotypes are reported in the literature [22, 23] hut only two types are of commercial interest. 

Several species from the Lamiaceae family have very high potential for commercial production of essential oils in Kenya. Most members of this family are perennial herbs. 

In salads or in cooking, olive oil is usually mixed with herbs and spices, which are also important elements of the Mediterranean diet. Herbs like oregano, rosemary, or thyme and others from the plants of the Lamiaceae family are rich sources of phenolic compounds with strong antioxidant activity (Nakatami 1994, Tsimidou and Boskou 1994, Antoun and Tsimidou 1997, Exarchou el al. 2001). These herbs maintain the nutritional value of the food and enhance the shelf life of the food product. 

Tsimidou, M. and Boskou, D. (1994) Antioxidant activity of essential oils from the plants of the Lamiaceae family in Herbs, Spices and Edible Fungi (ed G. Charalambous), Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 273-284. 

Some empirical uses of S. sclarea suggest that its essential oil, like many essential oils of the Lamiaceae family, has an inhibitory effect on microorganisms pathogenic to man. Ulubelen et al. [51] examined the antimicrobial activity of some diterpenes and sesquiterpenes found in an acetone extract of S. sclarea. They found that 2, 3-dehydrosalvipisone, sclareol, manool, 7-oxoroyleanone, spathulenol and caryophyllene oxide were active against Staphylococcus aureus 2, 3- dehydrosalvipisone and manool were active against Candida albicans and caryophyllene oxide was active against Proteus mirabilis. 

Rosmarinic acid (a-O-ca ffeoy i-3.4-di hydroxy phenyl act ic acid) (Figure 1) is an example of a caffeic acid ester occurring in plants. Rosmarinic acid is mainly found In species of the Boraginaceae and Lamiaceae families, but can also be detected in other families (i.e. Apiaceae), ferns and homworts (Table I) (3,d). This suggests that the ability to synthesize this cafTeoyl ester may actually be widespread as evidenced by rosmarinic acid accumulation in a range of species (Table I) (5). 

The presence of rosmarinic acid in methanolic extracts of lavandin cell cultures suggests that these extracts may offer potential as antioxidants. Despite the fact that lavandin belongs to the Lamiaceae family, there is little information about its antioxidant properties (IJ)... 

Glands are the name given to cellular excrescences on some surface area of the plant that holds the essential oil. Examples of plants that have these are thyme, marjoram, rosemary, sage, and savory. It is interesting to note that all these plants are members of the Lamiaceae family. 

Diterpenes tend to be most abundant in the Lamiaceae family, for example Salvia officinalis, or common sage, which has antiviral diterpenes (Tada et al. 1994) and forskolin from Coleus forskohlii. Forskolin has demonstrated a range of activities, including vasodil-atory, antihypertensive, bronchodilatory, positive inotropic action on... 

The Mediterranean species hyssop Hyssopus officinalis) belongs to the Lamiaceae family. It is used for its spicy essential oil in food industry and also as a strong antimicrobial agent. 

Really, there are today already several examples for producing the same molecule as active com pound by different enzymes and thus likely on the base of different genetic determination. Linalool synthase from Clarkia brewed has different constitution than linalool synthase from Arabidopsis plants (Dudareva et al., 2006) and only 41% identity to the same enzyme fromM. citrata (Crowell et al., 2002). The enzyme from M. citrata is, however, much more close to other enzymes from the mint (Lamiaceae) family with 62%-72% identity. 

Plants especially from the Lamiaceae family can inhibit the growth of several weeds by releasing phytotoxic monoterpenes (a-pinene, P pinene, camphene, limonene, a-phellandrene, p-cymene, 1,8-cineole, borneol, pulegone, and camphor) (Angelini et al., 2003). The herbicide effect of 1,4-cineole and 1,8-cineole is also described by Dayan et al. (2012). Plants that are exposed to essential oils often metabolize them, and when citral was added geraniol, nerol and their acids appeared. When citronellal metabolization was tested, citronellol and citronellic acid were formed, and with pulegone (iso)-menthone, isopulegol and menthofuran were found (Dudai et al., 2000). 

Kwon, Y.I., Apostolidis, E., Labbe, R.G., and Shetty, K. 2007. Inhibition of Staphylococcus aureus by Phenolic Phytochemicals of Selected Clonal Herbs Species of Lamiaceae Family and Likely Mode of Action through Proline Oxidation. Food Biotechnology, 21(1), 71-89. 

The antioxidant properties of plants belonging to the Lamiaceae family such as oregano, th mie, rosemary, mints, maqoram, and sage have been widely studied. However, each plant generally contains different bioactive compounds that possess various amoimts of antioxidants, and therefore different antioxidant capacities (Skrovankova et al. 2012). 

Other plants belonging to Lamiaceae family with a considerable an-... 

Actually, there is a great scientific effort to delay the process of carcinogenesis and to reduce the morbidity and mortality of cancer. In this way, the search of biologically active components of aromatic plants as chemopreventive agents seems to be very promising. Thereby, many of the non-nutritive components of aromatic herbs and spices of the Lamiaceae family are known to possess potential activity as chemopro-tective agents against cancer. 

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