Abstract
Author(s): Guy Alain Alitonou1*, Fidele Paul Tchobo1, Philipe Sessou1, Félicien Avlessi1, Chantal Menut2 and Dominique CK. Sohounhloue1
The chemical composition of the essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation from fresh leaves of four Annonaceae:Annona muricata, Annona squamosa,Monodora myristica andXylopia aethiopicagrowing wild in Benin were analyzed by GC and GC/MS. Twenty four compounds were identified and quantified in the essential oil of Annona muricatawith isocaryophyllene (20.2%); caryophyllene (16.1%); cadinene (11.4%), elemene (8.9%); muurolene (6.9%) as major components. Twenty nine compounds were identified and quantified in the essential oil of Annona squamosawhich contained isocaryophyllene(24.9%), camphene (10.2%), caryophyllene (2.6%), epi-cadinol + epiuurolol (9.2%) as prominent components. Essential oil of Monodora myristicascreened contained twenty four components identified and quantified with phellandrene (65.5%), pinene (6.2%) as main compounds. Thirty three compounds were identified and quantified in the essential oils of Xylopia aethiopica,the major compounds being p-cymène(16.0%), sabinene(12.6%), terpinen-4-ol (11.3%), elemene (10.6%) and pinene(7.1%). The antiradical and anti-inflammatory activities of these oils were found to be low.