Anti–oxidative and anti–inflammatory effects of Tagetes minuta essential oil in activated macrophages

• Published in: Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine
• Main Authors: Parastoo Karimian, Gholamreza Kavoosi, Zahra Amirghofran
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2014
• Subjects: Tagetes minuta; Essential oil; Macrophages; Anti-inflammatory; Antioxidant; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Biology (General); QH301-705.5; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2221-1691(14)60235-5; https://doaj.org/article/c304dff538fd41ee8ca26a2ad0599e80

Objective: To investigate antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of Tagetes minuta (T. minuta) essential oil. Methods: In the present study T. minuta essential oil was obtained from leaves of T. minuta via hydro-distillation and then was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The anti-oxidant capacity of T. minuta essential oil was examined by measuring reactive oxygen, reactive nitrogen species and hydrogen peroxide scavenging. The anti-inflammatory activity of T. minuta essential oil was determined through measuring NADH oxidase, inducible nitric oxide synthase and TNF-α mRNA expression in lipopolysacharide-stimulated murine macrophages using real-time PCR. Results: Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis indicated that the main components in the T. minuta essential oil were dihydrotagetone (33.86%), E-ocimene (19.92%), tagetone (16.15%), cis-β-ocimene (7.94%), Z-ocimene (5.27%), limonene (3.1%) and epoxyocimene (2.03%). The T. minuta essential oil had the ability to scavenge all reactive oxygen/reactive nitrogen species radicals with IC50 12-15 μg/mL, which indicated a potent radical scavenging activity. In addition, T. minuta essential oil significantly reduced NADH oxidase, inducible nitric oxide synthaseand TNF-α mRNA expression in the cells at concentrations of 50 μg/mL, indicating a capacity of this product to potentially modulate/diminish immune responses. Conclusions: T. minuta essential oil has radical scavenging and anti-inflammatory activities and could potentially be used as a safe effective source of natural anti-oxidants in therapy against oxidative damage and stress associated with some inflammatory conditions.