Chemical Composition and Antioxidant Potential of Pistacia lentiscus L. Essential Oil from Oran (Algeria)

Essential oil from the leaves of Pistacia lentiscus L. growing in the Oran region in the west of Algeria was obtained by hydrodistillation with a 1.26 % yield on a dry weight basis. Spectrophotometric analyses were employed to highlight the scavenger capacity of this oil using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) test. Twenty compounds were identified by GC and CG/MS analyses, and the main part of the compounds of the oil was terpinene-4-ol (41.24%) and α-terpineol (7.31%), α-pinene (9.48%), limonene (09.11%), β-myrcene (10.5%), p-cymene (8.67%) and α-phellandrene (2.20%), β-caryophyllene (12.62%) as major compounds. The DPPH test shows that Pistacia lentiscus essential oil possesses antiradical activity. A linear correlation (correlation coefficient R2 = 0.995, P < 0.001) was found between the reduction of DPPH stable free radical and the concentration of Pistacia lentiscus essential oil.