Bulletin of the Chemical Society of Ethiopia (Dec 2003)
<b>Anti-inflammatory and analgesic activities: Chemical constituents of essential oils of <i>Ocimum gratissimum</i>, <i>Eucalyptus citriodora</i> and <i>Cymbopogon giganteus</i> inhibited lipoxygenase L-1 and cyclooxygenase of PGHS</b>
Abstract
The following studies report the inhibitory effect produced by chemical constituents of essential oils of three plants used in traditional medicine as anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs, in vitro, on soybean lipoxygenase L-1 and cyclooxygenase function of prostaglandin H synthase (PGHS), the two enzymes involved in the production of mediators of inflammation. The essential oils were extracted from plants of three families: O. gratissimum (Labiatae), C. giganteus (Poaceae), and E. citriodora (Myrtaceae). Their chemical composition was established by GC/MS analyses. Among the three essential oils, one showed evident inhibition of L-1 with IC50 value of 72 μg/mL for Eucalyptus citriodora. Only one essential oil that of O. gratissimum inhibited the two enzymes, cyclooxygenase function of PGHS and lipoxygenase L-1, with an IC50 values, respectively, of 125 μg/mL and 144 μg/mL, whereas that of C. giganteus and E. citriodora, two of them had no effect on cyclooxygenase.
