Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Chemical composition of Salvia plebeian R.Br. essential oil and its larvicidal activity against Aedes aegypti L

Shanliang Zhu¹, Xin Chao Liu², Zhi Long Liu² , Xiaofeng Xu¹

¹College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, 1 Wenyuan Road, Nanjing 210023, Jiangsu Province; ²Department of Entomology, China Agricultural University, 2 Yuanmingyuan West Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100193, China.

For correspondence:- Zhi Liu Email: zhilongliu@cau.edu.cn, Tel:+861062732800

Received: 8 October 2014 Accepted: 2 April 2015 Published: 26 May 2015

Citation: Zhu S, Liu XC, Liu ZL, Xu X. Chemical composition of Salvia plebeian R.Br. essential oil and its larvicidal activity against Aedes aegypti L. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(5):831-836 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i5.13

© 2015 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the larvicidal activity of the essential oil of Salvia plebeian R.Br. (Labiatae) aerial parts against the larvae of Aedes aegypti L.

Methods: The essential oil of S. plebeian aerial parts was obtained by hydro-distillation and analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The essential oil was evaluated for larvicidal activity using World Health Organization (WHO) procedures, against the fourth larvae of A. aegypti within 24 h, and activity was recorded for various concentrations of the ranging from 12.5 – 200.0 μg/mL.

Results: A total of 33 components of the essential oil of S. plebeian were identified. The major compounds of the essential oil were caryophyllene oxide (15.54 %), γ-eudesmol (14.03 %), τ-cadinol (10.21 %), calamenene (9.63 %), copaene (5.70 %), γ-cadinene (5.30 %), cadalene (5.28 %), α-muurolene (5.19 %), ledol (5.14 %) and α-cadinol (5.08 %). The essential oil exhibited larvicidal activity against A. aegypti at a median lethal concentration (LC₅₀) of 46.26 μg/mL.

Conclusion: The findings indicate that the essential oil of S. plebeian aerial parts has potentials for use in the control of A. aegypti larvae and may be useful in the search for newer, safer and more effective natural compounds as larvicides.

Keywords: Salvia plebeian, Essential oil, Larvicidal activity, Aedes aegypti, Caryophyllene oxide, ^7;-Eudesmol, `4;-Cadinol, Calamenene