Antimicrobial and antioxidant activity of essential oil of Ammodaucus leucotrichus Coss. & Dur. seeds

This work presents the chemical composition,antibacterial and antioxidant activities of essential oils obtained from ammodaucus leucotrichus coss. & dur. seeds. the essential oil composition was investigated by gc/ms with 34 identified essential constituents representing 96.29 % of the total amount; the main constituents were perillaldehyde (59.12 %) and limonene (23.89 %). the antioxidant activity was evaluated by β-carotene bleaching method,compared to the synthetic antioxidants. in this method oxidation of linoleic acid was inhibited by essential oil. the inhibition value was close to bht with 88.10% inhibition. the antimicrobial potentials were determined by different techniques. in the minimum inhibitory concentration methods,the essential oil played a major role as a remarkable antimicrobial agent due to its inhibition action against most pathogenic tested with mic values ranged from 0.37 to 0.92 mg/ml. in the disc diffusion method,the essential oil at dose 1.29 mg/disc showed significant antibacterial activity against bacteria and yeast. the antifungal results for the essential oil revealed good clear zones of growth inhibition. the activity of the essential oils could be related to the structure of the constituent components.