Chemical diversity, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of the essential oils from Indian populations of Hedychium coronarium Koen

Hedychium coronariwn Koen. is a perennial herb of family Zingiberaceae that is valued for its high quality essential oil. In the present study, the variability in chemical constituents, antioxidant and antimicrobial property of essential oils of Hedychium coronarium collected from different locations of Eastern India were evaluated. Essential oil hydrodistilled from rhizome parts of H. coronarium varied from 0.05 to 0.47% (v/w). A total of 44 components accounting for 86.18-99.94% of H. coronarium essential oil were identified by gas chromatography flame ionization detector (GC-FID) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The major components are beta-pinene (11.07-42.74%), eucalyptol (11.48-40.59%), linalool (1.56-45.11%), coronarin-E (1.01-39.57%), alpha-pinene (3.80-16.60%), p-cymene (1.05-8.89%), gamma-terpinene (1.73-5.82%) and 10epi-gamma-eudesmol (1.11-4.86%). According to agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) and principal component analysis (PCA), the essential oils of H. coronariwn populations were grouped into four different chemotypes. They were (I) eucalyptol, (II) linalool, (III) coronarin-E, and (IV) beta-pinene. Furthermore, essential oils exhibited considerable levels of reducing power activity (IC50, 0.39-1.66 mg/ml), 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) (IC50, 0.57-2.19 mg/ml), 2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) (IC50, 0.12-0.67 mg/ml) radical-scavenging activities. Results of antimicrobial activity concluded that essential oil has good inhibitory activity against Candida albicans and Fusarium oxysporwn. The results showed that geographic origin greatly influenced the chemical composition of essential oil of H. coronarium and their associated bioactivities. Four chemotypes identified in the present study could be developed as promising bioresource in perfumery, food and pharmaceutical industry.