Chemical characterization of essential oil from seeds of wild and cultivated carrots from Serbia

Abstract

Seeds from wild carrot (Daucus carota L. ssp. carota) have been used for medicinal purposes since ancient times. Today the oil of its seeds has been proved to possess antinociceptive, antiinflammatory, hypoglycaemic, antidiabetic, antioxidative and anticancer activity. The cultivated carrot (Daucus carota L. ssp. sativus (Hoffm.) Arcang.) is mainly used as a root vegetable, while its seed oil is sometimes employed as a flavouring agent in food products and in the cosmetics industry. In the light of this very different usage, the aim of our investigation was to identify chemical compounds from essential oils of the seeds of these two subspecies of D. carota collected during 2014 in northern Serbia. It is established that wild carrot contains 1.67% of essential oil in the seeds, while cultivated carrot contains 0.55%. In the case of wild-grown carrot, gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) analyses of seed essential oil show that sabinene (40.9%) and α-pinene (30.1%), followed by β-bisabolene (6.2%), β-pinene (5.7%) and trans-caryophyllene (5.3%) are the dominant compounds. The major constituents of essential oil from cultivated carrot seeds are carotol (22.0%), sabinene (19.6%) and α-pinene (13.2%). The mixture of aromadendrene, β-farnesene and sesquisabinene comprises 8.2%, the content of transcaryophyllene is 5.7% while that of myrcene amounts to 4.7%. Analysis of seeds from both carrots reveals significantly different chemical characteristics of their essential oil, the existence of which influences their different usage.

Seme divlje mrkve (Daucus carota L. ssp. carota) se koristi u lekovite svrhe od antičkog doba. U današnje vreme dokazano je da ono poseduje antinociceptivno, antiinflamatorno, hipoglikemijsko, antidiabetično, antioksidativno i antikancerogeno dejstvo. Gajena mrkva (D. carota L. ssp. sativus (Hoff m.) A rca ng.) se uglavnom koristi kao korenasto povrće, dok se etarsko ulje semena retko koristi, i to kao poboljšivač ukusa u prehrambenoj industriji i kozmetici. Imajući u vidu veoma različitu upotrebu, cilj našeg istraživanja je bio da se identifikuju hemijske komponente etarskog ulja semena ove dve vrste D. carota sakupljenog tokom 2014. godine u severnoj Srbiji. Tom prilikom je ustanovljeno da divlja mrkva sadrži 1,67% etarskog ulja u semenu, a gajena mrkva 0,55%. Analizom etarskog ulja primenom gasne hromatografije-masene spektrometrije (GC-MS) ustanovljeno je da etarsko ulje divlje mrkve u najvećem procentu sadrži sabinen (40,9%) i α-pi nen (3 0,1%), a potom slede β-bisabolen (6,2%), β-pinen (5,7%) i trans-kariofilen (5,3%). Glavne komponente etarskog ulja gajene mrkve su karotol (22,0%), sabinen (19,6%) i α-pinen (13,2%), dok mešavina aromadendrena, β-farnezena i seskvisabinena čini 8,2%, trans-kariofilen 5,7% i mircen 4,7%. Analizama semena ove dve vrste mrkve ustanovljena je značajno drugačija karakterizacija etarskih ulja što utiče na njihovu različitu upotrebu.