Identification of antioxidant ingredients by GC-MS from the essential oil of Purple Eleutherococcus simonii leaves

Abstract The main objective of the current study was to investigate the components and antioxidant activity of essential oil extracted from Purple Eleutherococcus leaves (identified as Eleutherococcus simonii) (PEEO) by hydrodistillation (HD) and solid-phase microextraction (SPME). Fourteen chemical components were identified in PEEO using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), accounting for 41.21% of the total essential oil extracted by SPME, including isopropyl toluene, 4-methylene-1-(1-methylethyl) cyclohexene (3.24%), fumaric-red myrrh alcohol (2.94%), farnesol acetate (2.92%), etc. Forty-three compounds were identified by HD, accounting for 73.28% of the total essential oil extracted by HD, including α-Farnesene (3.4%), Hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester (1.28%), (α-Bisabolol (0.87%), etc. The antioxidant activity of PEEO was characterized for 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical, ABTS method and FRAP method, and the IC50 values were 1.125 mg/mL, 0.945 mg/mL and 0.862 mg/mL, respectively. The IC50 values for DPPH, ABTS and FRAP of essential oil were similar to those of ascorbic acid (VC; 0.853, 0.945 and 0.037 mg/mL). The results showed that the essential oil of PEEO has a high radical scavenging activity.