Abstract

Chilean Laureliopsis philippiana has been used in traditional medicine by the Mapuche and their ancestors. To evaluate its pharmacological activity, Laureliopsis philippiana leaf essential oil extract (LP_EO) was chemically and biologically characterized in the present study. In vitro antioxidant potential was analyzed, and antitumor activity was evaluated in non-tumor and tumor cell culture lines. Caenorhabditis elegans was used as a model for evaluating toxicity, and the chem-ical composition of the essential oil was analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The oil contains six major monoterpenes: eucalyptol (27.7 %), linalool (27.6 %), isozaphrol (19.5 %), isohomogenol (12.6 %), a-terpineol (7.7 %), and eudesmol (4.8 %). Based on quantum mechanical calculations, isosafrole and isohomogenol conferred in vitro antioxidant and antimicro-bial activity to LP_EO. In addition, LP_EO showed antimicrobial activity against clinical Heli-cobacter pylori isolates (MIC 64 and MBC > 128 mu g center dot mL-1), Staphylococcus aureus (MIC 32 and MBC > 64 mu g center dot mL-1), Escherichia coli (MIC 8 and MBC 16 mu g center dot mL-1) and Candida albicans (MIC 64 and > 128 mu g center dot mL-1). LP_EO could selectively inhibit the proliferation of epithelial tumor cell lines but showed low toxicity against Caenorhabditis elegans (0.39 to 1.56 mu g center dot mL-1). Therefore, LP_EO may be used as a source of bioactive compounds in novel pharmacological treatments for veterinary and human application, cosmetics, or sanitation. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).