Chemical Composition of Different Parts of the Vitex agnus-castus L. Essential Oils and Their In-Vitro Cytotoxic Activities

The essential oil (EO) compositions and chemotypes of the important ethnomedicinal plant Vitex agnus-castus L. flowers, leaves, and fruits collected from Turkiye (Balikesir and Istanbul) were identified in the present study. Different parts of the V. agnus-castus EO's in-vitro cytotoxic effects on the MCF-7 (human breast adenocarcinoma) and A549 (human lung carcinoma) human-origin cell lines were anaylzed in the current study. The composition of hydrodistiled EOs extracted from flowers, leaves, and fruits of V. agnus-castus were analyzed by GC-FID/MS. Monoterpene hydrocarbons and oxygenated monoterpene compounds were detected as the predominant component class of the V. agnus-castus. EOs extracted from Balikesir region were defined as the apinene-1,8-cineole chemotype, while EOs extracted from Istanbul region were defined as the sabinene-1,8-cineole chemotype. Sesquiterpene hydrocarbons constituted more than 20% of the compounds in the EOs extracted from the flowers. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to analyze the in-vitro cytotoxic effects of flowers. This study is also the first to show the in-vitro cytotoxic effects of fruit, the most commonly used part of the plant, EO on the MCF-7 cell line. Balikesir region's EOs were observed as more potent-especially the purple flower's IC50 is about 4.68 mu g/mL on the MCF7 cell line- than Istanbul regions, which might be attributed to the higher amount of a-pinene, caryophyllene, and limonene content. Our results indicated that the V. agnus-castus EOs, which contain a-pinene, 1,8-cineole, caryophyllene, and limonene as major components, showed relatively high cytotoxic effects compared to the control groups on the MCF7 and A549 cell lines. (c) 2023 ACG Publications. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The essential oil compositions and chemotypes of Vitex agnus-castus L. flowers, leaves, and fruits from Turkiye were identified. The cytotoxic effects of the essential oils extracted from different parts of V. agnus-castus were analyzed on MCF-7 and A549 cell lines. The essential oils contained dominant monoterpene hydrocarbons and oxygenated monoterpene compounds, with sesquiterpene hydrocarbons being the major component in the flower oils.