Plant oils constituents

About 120 chemical constituents have been identified in chamomile as secondary metabolites, including 28 terpenoids, 36 flavonoids and 52 additional compounds [4]. A substantial part of drag effects are determined by the essential oil content. Oil is collected from flower heads, either by steam distillation or solvent extraction, for yields of 0.24-1.90% of fresh or dry plant tissue. Among the essential oil constituents the most active are /-/-a-bisabolol and chamazulene. /-/-a-bisabolol has demonstrated anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, antimicrobial, antiulcer, sedative and CNS activity. Chamazulene is also anti-inflammatory. Topical applications of chamomile preparation have shown benefit in the treatment of eczema, dermatitis and ulceration [5]. 

As discussed above, cresols are widely distributed natural compounds. They are formed as metabolites of microbial activity and are excreted in the urine of mammals. Various plant lipid constituents, including many oils, contain cresols. Cresols have also been detected in certain foods and beverages such as tomatoes, tomato ketchup, cooked asparagus, various cheeses, butter, oil, red wine, distilled spirits, raw and roasted coffee, black tea, smoked foods, tobacco, and tobacco smoke (Fiege and Bayer 1987). However, very few monitoring data for cresols in food were found in the literature. 

Hypericum perforatum (Clusiaceae), commonly known as SJW, is used in many countries for the treatment of mild-to-moderate forms of depression. Several clinical studies provide evidence that SJW is as effective as conventional synthetic antidepressants (46-51). From a phytochemical point of view, H. perforatum belongs to one of the best-investigated medicinal plants. A series of bioactive compounds have been detected in the crude material, namely phenylpropanes, flavonol derivatives, biflavones, proanthocyani-dins, xanthones, phloroglucinols, some amino acids, naphthodianthrones, and essential oil constituents (Fig. 3) (52-54). 

The curry leaf plant is highly valued for its characteristic aroma and medicinal value (Philip, 1981). A number of leaf essential oil constituents and carbazole alkaloids have been extracted from the plant (Mallavarapu et al., 1999). There are a large number of oxygenated mono- and sesquiterpenes present, e.g. c/s-ocimene (34.1%), a-pinene (19.1%), y-terpinene (6.7%) and P-caryophyllene (9.5%), which appear to be responsible for the intense odour associated with the stalk and flower parts of curry leaves (Onayade and Adebajo, 2000). In fresh bay leaves, 1, 8-cineole is the major component, together with a-terpinyl acetate, sabinene, a-pinene, P-pinene, P-elemene, a-terpineol, linalool and eugenol (Kilic et al., 2004). 

Boselah, N.A.E. (1995) Effect of different levels of salinity on the growth, yield and volatile oil constituents of coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) plants. Annals of Agricultural Science, Moshtohor 33(1), 345-358. 

There is much controversy, at least in Europe, concerning genetic modification of plants. The three major crops affected so far are maize, soyabean and rapeseed. All of these, in addition to their other uses, are sources of oil. The reasons for modification in all these cases are related to herbicide tolerance and resistance to insects. For the varieties generally available at present, there is no known difference from non-modified strains with respect to fatty acid composition, oil yield, tocopherol level, or the level of any other minor oil constituent. 

The phenylpropanoids rrans-anethole (61) and rran -cinnamaldehyde (62) are used as flavoring agents in foods in the United States and some other countries [20]. tranj-Cinnamaldehyde (62) Avas isolated from Cinnamomum osmophloeum Kanehira (Lauraceae) as a sweet principle, while tra/w-anethole (61) was isolated as the volatile oil constituent responsible for the sweet taste of several plant species, as listed in Table 1 [92]. These two compounds occur widely in the plant kingdom. Therefore, it is necessary to rule out their presence in any candidate sweet plant by a dereplication procedure in a natural product sweetener discovery program using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) [46,47]. 

Betel Leaf Oil Y up, another crazy betel plant with magical properties. Seems like this betel plant has quite a few varieties with very interesting oil constituents. Anethole, as it so happens, is included. In 1990, Rawat, et al did an analysis of the oils from five different Indian cultivars (a cultivar is a local name given to a plant even though it is the same species as any other or is the name of the grower or region) [15], Lawrence provided a nice compilation of the data in T able m which will also give you a little peek into some of the other components in betel oils [2, vol. V, p. 92]. 

Gokhale, N.N., et. al., "The Mode of Recovery of the Essential Oil Constituents from the Minute Cells of the Plant Materials During Steam Distillation," Proceedings of the 7th International Essential Oil Congress, Kyoto 1977, p. 242-247... 

Eucalyptus citriodora Hook f (Lemon gum) The oil of the fresh leaves of E. citriodora (2.2-8.3%), a tree introduced into Kenya from Australia (68), has been well researched in Kenya. Results indicate that there are two chemical varieties that were introduced. The chief essential oil constituents of one variety are citronellal (65-88%), citronellol (2-25%) and isopulegol (2-19%). In constrast, the second variety has as its major essential oil consitutents citronellol (32-52%), citronellal (38-59%) and 1,8-cineole (2-19%) (68,69). The essential oil is regarded as a perfumery oil. This plant is the second most commercially important Eucalyptus species in the essential oil trade and is only second to E. smithii Baker (69). The aromatic oil is used in soaps, creams and lotions due to its desirable odor properties, and as with many other essential oils is also used extensively in many technical preparations to mask other industrial malodors. A highly active mosquito repellent compound, p-menthane 3,8-diol has been isolated from the waste water of distillation of E. citriodora. There are now many commercial mosquito repellents based on this waste water (70-73). 

Fig. 15 The amount ofvolatile oil gained by steam dLstillation of Melissae folium (1), as well as the amount of the oil constituents citronellal (Tl/R, 0,75), citral (T2/R, 0.5 and terpene alcohols (R(0.2-0.4, e.g. nerol, citronellol) depends on plant origin and harvesting time.

Coal/oil slurries were used in the instrument performance tests. The coal was finely ground Ohio 9, a high-ash highly volatile bituminous coal, the major constituents of which are 59 wt.% carbon, 4 wt.% hydrogen, 4 wt.% sulfur, and 24 wt.% ash. A sieve analysis disclosed that = 86% of the coal particles were of 63-125 om in diameter. The oil was a representative organic liquid used in the feedlines of some pilot coal conversion plants. Oil density at 20°C was 0.868 g/cm3. 

Plant geneticists revolutionized the vegetable oil industry with modified fatty acid composition oils, and we can expect that the amounts and types of minor oil constituents can be modified as well. The difference in the eflFects of tocopherols in vivo and in vitro highlights the conflict between choosing an oil based on nutritional benefits versus selecting an oil for its oxidative stability. 

Terpenes were originally named after turpentine, the volatile oil from pine trees used in oil painting, whose major constituent is a-pinene. The term was rather vaguely used for aU the volatile oily compounds, insoluble in water and usually with resinous smells from plants. Oils distilled from plants, which often contain perfumery or flavouring materials, are called essential oils and these too contain terpenes. Examples include camphor from the camphor tree, which is used to preserve clothes from moths, and humulene from hops, which helps to give beer its flavour. 

Monoterpenoids and sesquiterpenoids are the main components of plants essential oils known to be effective antimicrobials (Fig. 17). Bactericidal activity of essential oils and some of their constituents on foodbome bacteria have been reported a decade ago [164]. Among essential oil constituents, terpinen-4-ol has been shown to significantly affect T. hrucei bloodstream forms viability [165]. Sesquiterpenes were found less active against trypanosomes, allo-aromadendrene 10-fold more effective than its diastereoisomer aromadendrene. Another sesquiterpene artemisinin, isolated from A. annua, is the antiparasitic drug most widely used in the world [166]. However,... 

The dominant fatty acids in the commercial feeds of sea bass and gdthead sea bream were 16 0, 18 1 o>-9, 18 2 a>-6, 20 5 oo-3 and 22 6 oo-3 (Table 3) which is in accordance with the literature (Giigorakis et al., 2002). The content of 20 4 oo-6 PUFA in the commercial feed of both farmed fish was minimal (Table 3), result which is in agreement with previous findings (Sargent et al., 1999), while 18 2 co-6 PUFA detected in high levels in both commercial feeds (Table 3) due to the fact that this fatty acid is a constituent of plant oils used for farmed fish feed manufacture (Owen et al., 1975 Yamata et al., 1980). 

In the field of film-forming materials, use of alkyd resins incorporating plant oils or their derivatives has been a standard practice for a century, but no major qualitative advance was introduced imtil recently. The same applies for bulk polymers based on vegetable oils, of which linoleum (first commercialised in the middle of the 19 century) was for a long time the only important representative of these materials. Nylon 11 (commercialised under the name of Rilsan based on castor oil as a precursor) has been an important addition to this small family from the 1950s onwards. In other words, vegetable oils represented a very modest presence as basic constituents of macromolecular materials up to about a decade ago, but the situation has evolved radically since then. 

New approaches to analyze essential oils by vibrational spectroscopy using attenuated re ec-tion (AIR) IR spectroscopy and NIR-FT-Raman spectroscopy have recently been published by Baranska et al. (2005) and numerous papers cited therein. The main components of an essential oil can be identi ed by both spectroscopic techniques using the spectra of pure oil constituents as references. The spectroscopic analysis is based on characteristic key bands of the individual constituents and made it, for example, possible to discriminate the oil pro les of several eucalyptus species. As can be taken from this paper, valuable information can be obtained as a result of the combined application of ATR-IR and NIR-FT-Raman spectroscopy. Based on reference GC measurements, valuable calibration equations have been developed for numerous essential oil plants and related essential oils in order to quantify the amount of individual oil constituents applying different suitable chemometric algorithms. Main advantages of those techniques are their ability to control the quality of essential oils very fast and easily and, above all, their ability to quantify and analyze the main constituents of essential oils in situ, that means in living plant tissues without any isolation process, since both techniques are not destructive. 

Kubeczka, K. H., 1985. Progress in isolation techniques for essential oil constituents. In Advances in Medicinal Plant Research, A. J. Vlietinck and R. A. Dommisse (eds.), pp. 197-224. Stuttgart, Germany Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft mbH,... 

Kostyukovsky, M., A. Rafaeli, C. Gileadi, N. Demchenko, and E. Shaaya, 2002. Activation of octopamineigic receptors by essential oil constituents isolated from aromatic plants Possible mode of action against insect pests. Manage. ScL, 58 1101-1106. 

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