Essential Oil Composition, Antioxidant Activity and Total Phenolic Content of Some Lamiaceae Taxa Growing in Northwest of Iran

Background: lamiaceae family is one of the main sources of aromatic andmedicinal plants. in the present study essential oil constituents, free radicalscavengingactivity and total phenolic content of the aerial parts of fourlamiaceae taxa, ziziphora tenuior (zt), scutellaria orientalis subsp. virens(so), eremostachys laciniata subsp. iberica (el) and phlomis herba-ventisubsp. pungens (ph), collected from mishu-dagh region (northwest ofiran) were investigated. methods: gc and gc-ms were applied for theanalysis of plants oils. free radical-scavenging activity and total phenoliccontent of the plants hydroalcoholic extracts and their polar and non-polarfractions were also evaluated using dpph and folin-ciocalteu methods,respectively. results: a total of 58 compounds were identified in essentialoils, among them 1,8-cineol (19.6%), germacrene d (16.5%), linalool(10.2%) and germacrene d (11.7%) were characterized as main compounds inzt, so, el and ph oils, respectively. in dpph assay, polar fractions of eland zt exhibited considerable free radical-scavenging activity (ic50; 11.0 ±2.3 and 12.7 ± 2.7 ?g ml-1, respectively) in comparison with bht (ic50; 10.8± 2.1 ?g ml-1). the former fractions were also found to contain the highesttotal phenolic content (231.9 ± 9.3 and 214.1 ± 11.3 mg ega/g, respectively).conclusion: the present study introduces these four taxa as the plants withterpene rich oils and suggests them as potential sources of free radicalscavengingcompounds