ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTIBACTERIAL OF AERIAL PART ESSENTIAL OIL AND SOME ORGANIC EXTRACTS FROM THE ALGERIAN MEDICINAL PLANT PULICARIA MAURITANICA COSS

Pulicaria mauritanica Coss is one of the endemic medicinal plants from Algerian Sahara. It’s used for many traditional therapies for various diseases. The aims of this study were to analyse the chemical composition of aerial part essential oil of P.mauritanica coss and antibacterial properties. We investigate the content of different organic extracts on phenolics and flavonoids, and also their antioxidant activities (Ferric reducing and DPPH test). The GC-MS analysis revealed fifteen compounds representing 97.0 % of the total oil containing carvotanacetone (89.2 %), β-eudesmol (3.2 %) and nerolidol E (0.7 %) as a major components. The essential oil exhibited a strong antibacterial effect as a diameter of zones of inhibition (24.3 ± 2.1 mm and 22.7 ± 1.5 mm) against Citobacter frendii and Enterobacter cloaceae, respectively. We found the methanolic extract of flowers presented the highest level of phenolics and flavonoids contents (329.9 ± 0.3 mg GAE/g and 130 ± 1.1 mg CE/g). The antioxidant activity of the some organic extracts of P. mauritanica presented an average reducing power and more potent inhibition of DPPH radical activity (Ethyl acetate extract flowers IC50 = 7.43 μg/mL). The study of organic fractions of this plant may reveal interesting results