Abstract
This study was designed to investigate the antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of the essential oils from Piper officinarum C. DC. GC and GC/MS analysis of the leaf and stem oils showed forty one components, representing 85.6% and 93.0% of the oil, respectively. The most abundant components in the leaf oil were β-caryophyllene (11.2%), α-pinene (9.3%), sabinene (7.6%), β-selinene (5.3%) and limonene (4.6%), while β-caryophyllene (10.9%), α-phellandrene (9.3%), linalool (6.9%), limonene (6.7%) and α-pinene (5.0%) were the main components of the stem oil. The antioxidant activities were determined by using complementary tests: namely β-carotene-linoleic acid, DPPH radical scavenging and total phenolic assays. The stems oil showed weak activity (IC50 = 777.4 μg/mL) in the DPPH system, but showed moderate lipid peroxidation inhibition in the β-carotene-linoleic acid system (88.9 ± 0.35%) compared with BHT (95.5 ± 0.30%). Both oils showed weak activity against P. aeruginosa and E. coli with M IC values of 250 μg/mL.