Chemical composition and seasonal variation of essential oil of Sclerocarya birrea (A. Rich.) Hochst subsp birrea leaves from Benin

Essential oils from fresh leaves of Sclerocarya birrea (A. Rich.) Hochst. were extracted by steam distillation. The oil yield from plant collected during the hot season (February) was 0.10±0.02 and 0.24±0.01% from plant collected during the cold season (August). GC/FID and GC/MS analysis allowed us to identify a total of 49 compounds, representing 98% of the hydrodistillate. The oils contained about 96% sesquiterpenes among which 38±0.034% of 7-epi-α-selinene during the hot season and 51.7±0.12% of 7-epi-α- selinene during the cold. The main components of the oil from the hot period were 7-epi-α-selinene (38±0.03%), α-muurolene (25±0.03%), valencene (17±0.06%), β-selinene (4.3±0.01), β-caryophyllene (3.2±0.02) allo-aromadendrene-epoxide (1.5±0.03) and 14-hydrox-α-humulene (1.5±0.03). The essential oil from the cold season was characterized by 7-epi-α-selinene (51.7±0.12%), β-selinene (15.1±0.2%), valencene (12.9±0.05%), α-selinene (8.1±0.03) and β-caryophyllene (1.8±0.02%). This is the first report of these components in the essential oil of Sclerocarya birrea

Antitrypanosomal activity and toxicity of substituted citronellal semicarbazones and thiosemicarbazones hemi-synthesized in situ in the essential oil of Eucalyptus citriodora

In this work, the essential oil of Eucalyptus citriodora was extracted and analyzed by Gas Chromatography / Mass Spectrometry. From this analysis, it appears that citronellal is the major compound (68.2%) of this oil. This aldehyde was used in situ in the essential oil of Eucalyptus citriodora for the hemi-synthesis of four structures carbazones. That was citronellal semicarbazone (1), citronellal thiosemicarbazone (2), citronellal 4-phenyl semicarbazone (3) and citronellal 4-phenyl thiosemicarbazone (4). The structures of these compounds were confirmed by IR spectrometry, proton NMR and carbon-13 and by Mass Spectrometry. From the test againstTrypanosomabruceibrucei, it appears that citronellal semicarbazone (IC50 = 473.93 μM) and citronellal thiosemicarbazone (IC50 = 440.53 μM) had low activity. Citronellal 4-phenyl semicarbazone (IC50 = 57.26 μM) and 4-phenyl thiosemicarbazone citronellal (IC50 = 19.63 μM) had moderate activity. The activity of citronellal 4-phenyl thiosemicarbazonewas still pronounced. The study of the toxicity against Artemiasalinashowed that all compounds except the compound 1were moderately toxic andmay have antitumor properties. But the most antitrypanosomal compound 4was particularly selective on trypanosome cells (SI = 4.92) and could be a good candidate against this parasite