Author(s)

Lucilene Fernandes Silva¹, Maria das Graças Cardoso^1*, Luís Roberto Batista², Marcos de Souza Gomes¹, Leonardo Milani Avelar Rodrigues², Danúbia A. de Carvalho Selvati Rezende¹, Maria Luisa Teixeira¹, Marcos Schleiden Sousa Carvalho³, Juliana de Andrade Santiago¹, David Lee Nelson⁴

¹Department of Chemistry, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, Brazil.
²Department of Food Science, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, Brazil.
³Department of Agriculture, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, Brazil.
⁴Federal University of Vales de Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, Diamantina, Brazil.

The essential oils from Mentha viridis L. and Mentha pulegium L. were characterized by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). These oils were obtained by hydrodistillation and presented linalool (40.70%), carvone (13.52%) and α-terpinene (8.56%) as the principal constituents in the essential oil from Mentha viridis L. Pulegone (50.01%), menthol (31.90%) and menthone (16.56%) were the principal constituents in the essential oil from Mentha pulegium L. These essential oils (in concentrations ranging from 3.91 to 500 μL·mL^-1) showed satisfactory activities against Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella choleraesuis and Staphylococcus aureus. The antioxidant activities with 2-deoxyribose and phosphomolybdenum and the reducing power (in concentrations ranging from 0.78 to 1000 μL·mL^-1) were determined. The antioxidant activity was observed for the two oils evaluated by the phosphomolybdenum and 2-deoxyribose methods, whereas the essential oil from M. viridis presented low antioxidant activity in the reducing power assay.

Mentha, Linalool, Pulegone, Volatiles

Silva, L. , Cardoso, M. , Batista, L. , Gomes, M. , Rodrigues, L. , Rezende, D. , Teixeira, M. , Carvalho, M. , Santiago, J. and Nelson, D. (2015) Chemical Characterization, Antibacterial and Antioxidant Activities of Essential Oils of Mentha viridis L. and Mentha pulegium L. (L). American Journal of Plant Sciences, 6, 666-675. doi: 10.4236/ajps.2015.65072.