Essential Oil Yield, Composition, and Bioactivity of Sagebrush Species in the Bighorn Mountains

Authors

Valtcho D. Zheljazkov, Oregon State UniversityFollow
Charles L. Cantrell, USDA ARSFollow
Ekaterina A. Jeliazkova, Oregon State UniversityFollow
Tess Astatkie, Dalhousie UniversityFollow
Vicki Schlegel, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow

ORCID IDs

Valtcho D. Zheljazkov https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3479-9653

Charles L. Cantrell https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5163-9045

Ekaterina A. Jeliazkova https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2740-9925

Tess Astatkie https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9779-8789

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

4-1-2022

Citation

Zheljazkov, V.D.; Cantrell, C.L.; Jeliazkova, E.A.; Astatkie, T.; Schlegel, V. Essential Oil Yield, Composition, and Bioactivity of Sagebrush Species in the Bighorn Mountains. Plants 2022, 11, 1228. https://doi.org/10.3390/ plants11091228

Comments

Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license

Abstract

Sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) are dominant wild plants in large areas of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and they include several species and subspecies. The aim was to determine if there are significant differences in essential oil (EO) yield, composition, and biological activity of sagebrush within the Bighorn Mountains, U.S. The EO yield in fresh herbage varied from 0.15 to 1.69% for all species, including 0.25–1.69% in A. tridentata var. vaseyana, 0.64–1.44% in A. tridentata var. tridentata, 1% in A. tridentata var. wyomingensis, 0.8–1.2% in A. longifolia, 0.8–1% in A. cana, and 0.16% in A. ludoviciana. There was significant variability in the EO profile between species, and subspecies. Some EO constituents, such as α-pinene (0–35.5%), camphene (0–21.5%), eucalyptol (0–30.8%), and camphor (0–45.5%), were found in most species and varied with species and subspecies. The antioxidant capacity of the EOs varied between the species and subspecies. None of the sagebrush EOs had significant antimicrobial, antimalarial, antileishmanial activity, or contained podophyllotoxin. Some accessions yielded EO with significant concentrations of compounds including camphor, eucalyptol, cis-thujone, α-pinene, α-necrodol-acetate, fragranol, grandisol, para-cymene, and arthole. Therefore, chemotypes can be selected and possibly introduced into culture and be grown for commercial production of these compounds to meet specific industry needs.