Compositions and antioxidant activities of essential oils of different tissues from Cryptomeria japonica D. Don

Both hydrodistillation and headspace-GC methods were applied to extract essential oils from leaves, heartwood, sapwood, twig, and bark of Cryptomeria japonica D. Don and their chemical compositions determination and oil yields were analyzed. The antioxidant activities of these oils were also evaluated. The hydrodistillated leaves, heartwood, sapwood, twig, and bark essential oils contained 53, 44, 50, 87, and 60 identified compounds, respectively. Whereas the headspace methods separated from those parts 38, 35, 46, 61 and 46 identified compounds, respectively. Both methods showed similar main components and yields. The main composition of leaf essential were kaurene (19.1%), α-pinene (16.5%) and elemol (16.3%). Its heartwood oil had 1-epi-cubenol (18.9%), δ-cadinene (17.2%), andcubenol (14.9%) as the main ingredients; the sapwood oil contained cubebol (19.5%), cubenol (13.3%), 1-epi-cubenol (12.5%) and ferruginol (10.8%) as the main components; the bark oil, however, contained camphor (46.5%) and α-pinene (16.2%) etc.; and α-eudesmol (25.2%), γ-eudesmol (11.8%) in the twig oil. Essential oils from the leaves, heartwood, sapwood, and twigs of the species were predominately oxygenated sesquiterpenes, while the bark oil was mostly oxygenated monoterpenes. The antioxidant activities of these oils in a decreasing order was sapwood > twig > heartwood > bark > leaves. After TLC fractionation of the sapwood oil, we found that ferruginol had the highest antioxidant activity, and may be applicable as a natural antioxidant.