Industrial Crops and Products 57 (2014) 10–16 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Industrial Crops and Products jo u r n al homep age: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop Chemical composition of essential oil and in vitro antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of crude extracts of Commiphora myrrha resin Amal A. Mohamed a,∗ , Sami I. Ali a , Farouk K. EL-Baz a , Ahmad K. Hegazy b , Mimona A. Kord b a Plant Biochemistry Department, National Research Centre (NRC), Dokki, Giza, Egypt b Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 5 November 2013 Received in revised form 15 March 2014 Accepted 18 March 2014 Keywords: Antimicrobial activity Crude extracts Commiphora myrrha DPPH Essential oil GC–MS MIC a b s t r a c t The antioxidant and antimicrobial potential of methanol (ME-OH), ethyl acetate (ETOAC) crude extracts and essential oil (EO) of Commiphora myrrha resin were investigated. The major con- stituents of the essential oil identified from the resin of C. myrrha were -elemene (12.86%), 7-isopropyl-1,4-dimethyl-2-azulenol (12.22%), curzerene (11.64%), and germacra-1(10)7,11-trien-15-oic acid,8,12-epoxy-6-hydroxy-c ¸ -lactone (6.20%). In both DPPH scavenging and Fe 2+ chelating assays, the ME-OH extract exhibited the highest activity compared to ETOAC extract and EO. Concerning the reduc- ing power ability, EO was superior to Me-OH and ETOAC extracts. The Me-OH extract manifested the highest potential of antimicrobial activity against the tested bacterial and yeast microorganisms, while ETOAC extract and EO showed moderate or no potential antibacterial activity. The Me-OH extract exhib- ited the highest antioxidant and antimicrobial activity as compared to ETOAC and EO. It is concluded from the present study that besides its traditional use, the C. myrrha resin could be used as a natural source for antioxidant and antimicrobial compounds for possible applications in food and nutraceutical industries. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The plant-derived medicines are based upon the premise that they contain natural substances that can promote health and allevi- ate illness. The demonstration of the presence of natural products such as terpenes, alkaloids, flavonoids, coumarins and other sec- ondary metabolites in medicinal plants will provide a scientific validation for the popular use of these plants (Swayamjot et al., 2005). Many of the tropical and subtropical plants have been inves- tigated throughout the world due to their potent antioxidant and antimicrobial activities (Mohamed et al., 2013). In the living sys- tems, free radicals are constantly generated and when in excess, they can cause extensive damage to tissues and biomolecules leading to various pathological disorders such as aging, can- cer, inflammation, Alzheimer and cardiovascular diseases (Bakkali et al., 2008). The interest in antioxidants has been increasing because of their high capacity in scavenging free radicals and pro- tects human body from oxidative damage (Silva et al., 2007). The most commonly used synthetic antioxidants; butylated hydrox- ytoluene (BHT) and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) have been ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +20 235710098; fax: +20 235730098. E-mail address: amin amal@yahoo.com (A.A. Mohamed). reported to cause liver damage and carcinogenesis (Politeo et al., 2007). So, there is a growing interest in naturally derived antiox- idants from plants that might help attenuate oxidative damage and also overcome the deleterious effects of synthetic antioxidants (Muhammad et al., 2012). Essential oils are composed of mixtures of volatile secondary metabolites with strong odour commonly concentrated in different plant organs (Bakkali et al., 2008; Franz and Novak, 2010). Besides the antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory activities many essential oils have been confirmed to possess antioxidant activity (Prakash et al., 2012), anticancer, antinociceptive, antiphlogistic and antiviral activities (Sylvestre et al., 2006; Buchbauer, 2010). The efficiency of the essential oils depends on its chemical compo- sition which depends on the genotypes of the plant as well as on the environmental and agronomic conditions (Mejri et al., 2010). Myrrh is an aromatic oleogum resin obtained as an exudate from the stem of Commiphora myrrha and from other plants of the family Burseraceae (Greene, 1993). It is an effective antimicrobial agent used in the treatment of mouth ulcers, gingivitis, sinusitis, glan- dular fever, brucellosis and as an anti-parasitic agent (Abdel-Hay et al., 2002; Abdul-Ghani et al., 2009). Moreover, myrrh volatile oils and their crude extracts exhibited diverse biological activities such as cytotoxic, anesthetic, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects (Tipton et al., 2003; Massoud et al., 2004). Triterpenoids http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2014.03.017 0926-6690/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.