ANTIVIRAL, ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITIES AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF THE ESSENTIAL OIL OF NEPETA DEFLERSIANA SCHWEINF GROWING IN KSA

Abstract

The spread of respiratory tract infections, especially with resistant organisms, makes it urgent to search for new safe antimicrobial agents. Makkah city in Saudi Arabia is always crowded due to pilgrims & Muslim visitors for Hajj and Omra. This facilitates the rapid spread of infectious respiratory diseases. The essential oil of Nepeta deflersiana, grown in Saudi Arabia was tested against the highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) virus and eight respiratory tract pathogenic bacteria, six of them are multi-drug resistant bacteria. The Nepeta deflersiana oil showed high antibacterial and moderate antiviral activity. These results make N. deflersiana oil an important, promising and economic agent for eradication of the multiple antibiotics-resistant bacterial strains. The chemical composition of the essential oil of Nepeta deflersiana, was determined using GC/MS. A total of 26 compounds were identified that constitutes 95.28% of the total volatiles. The GC profile dominated by oxygenated constituents that represented 80.77% while the identified hydrocarbons were 14.51%. A series of the oxygenated monoterpene neptalactone isomers representing 72.64 % of the oil composition were detected. Linalool which is another oxygenated monoterpene represented 4.86%. Caryophyllene oxide was the major oxygenated sesquiterpene representing 3.93 % of the oil composition.