Achillea santolina: Growth Dependent Variation in Essential Oil Composition and Some in–vitro Bioactivity Studies

Achillea santolina is used in Jordanian herbal traditional medicine for the treatment of diabetes, intestinal disorders, inflammations and for wound healing.

Aims: The present study aimed at investigating the variation of the hydro-distilled oil composition extracted from fresh and air dried flowering parts of A. santolina collected at different growth stages. In addition, the antiplatelet and antiproliferative activities of the essential oil obtained from the air dried flowers were also investigated.

Study Design: The essential oils were extracted by hydro-distillation and their chemical composition was determined using GC/MS technique. The essential oil of the air dried flowers was evaluated for its inhibition of platelet aggregation caused by ADP and collagen. This oil was also assayed for its antiproliferative activity against MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 and PC-3 cancer cell lines.

Results: Oxygenated monoterpenoids were the main constituents in all plant samples. In the fresh plant, eucalyptol was the main constituent at the pre-flowering (18.05%), flowering (20.51%) and post flowering (14.70%), while in the dry plant samples, it dominated the pre-flowering (16.41%) and flowering (17.82%) stages with camphor (17.80%) at the post-flowering stage. The oil of the air dried flowering parts exhibited a dose dependent inhibition of platelet aggregation caused by ADP and collagen, with the highest inhibition at concentration of 60 μg/ml (93.75±3.13; 91.67±4.17., respectively). No antiproliferative activity was detected at concentration1mg/ml against the tested cell lines MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 and PC-3.

Conclusion: During the different growth stages, the essential oils of fresh and air dried flowering parts of A. santolina was dominated by oxygenated monoterpenoids. The hydro-distilled oil obtained from air dried flowers has shown a dose dependent antiplatelet activity on both ADP and collagen. This oil was inactive against MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 and PC-3 cancer cell lines at the stock concentrations of 1 mg/ml.