Journal of Medicinal Plants Research Vol. 6(18), pp. 3487-3494, 16 May, 2012 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/JMPR DOI: 10.5897/JMPR12.157 ISSN 1996-0875 ©2012 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Composition and biological activities of the essential oil extracted from a novel plant of Cinnamomum camphora Chvar. Borneol Jianyu Su 1,2,3 *, Jianping Chen 1 , Shengmei Liao 3 , Lin Li 1 , Liang Zhu 1 and Lei Chen 4 1 College of Light Industry and Food Sciences, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, Guangdong, China. 2 State Key Laboratory of Food Safety Technology for Meat Products, Xiamen 361100, Fujian, China. 3 Guangdong Jiaying Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Meizhou 514021, China. 4 Institute for Agro-product Processing, Anhui Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hefei 230031, People Republic of China. Accepted 22 March, 2012 This study analyzed the chemical composition, in vitro antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of the hydrodistillated essential oil obtained from fresh leaves of a novel plant of Cinnamomum camphora Chvar. Borneol. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis of the oil resulted in determination of 27 compounds, composing 98.14% of the oil. d-Borneol (81.58%), camphor (2.96%), and α-pinene (2.03%) were determined as the major components. Antioxidant activities of the essential oil and d-Borneol were analyzed in two aspects, namely β- carotene/linoleic acid and reducing power. The essential oil exhibited the highest antioxidant activity in β-carotene/linoleic acid, slightly weaker than that of butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), the standard commercial synthetic antioxidant among the experiments examined. Moreover, the essential oil exhibited moderate reducing power which was evaluated in terms of the total phenolic and flavonoid contents. The essential oil and d-Borneol exhibited antimicrobial effect as a diameter of zones of inhibition (9.21±0.6 to 22.12±1.3 and 7.32±0.5 to 20.42±1.4 mm), respectively, along with their MIC values (31.25 to 125 and 62.5 to 250 g/ml) against bacteria, yeasts and moulds. Key words: Cinnamomum camphora Chvar. Borneol, essential oil, d-Borneol, antioxidant activity, antimicrobial activity. INTRODUCTION Borneol (C 10 H 18 O) is a classical traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which is composed of many TCM prescriptions and used as the adjuvant. It has been used as a therapeutic agent in China for more than 1500 years (Jiang et al., 2008). According to the pharmacopoeia of People’s Republic of China (State Pharmacopoeia Committee, 2010), borneol is an ingredient in about 65herbal products. There are two different kinds of borneol: *Corresponding author. E-mail: jysu@scut.edu.cn. zhuliang@scut.edu.cn. Tel: +86 20 87113252. Fax:+86 20 87113252. The first one is synthetic borneol. It is a mixture of d- Borneol and isoborneol, in which the d-Borneol contents should be no less than 55.0%; the second one is natural borneol. The main component of natural borneol is d- Borneol, which should be >95.0% of natural borneol. Because of the rare resources and expensive price of natural borneol, synthetic borneol was widely used in Chinese formulas in recent years. However, synthetic borneol can be transformed into camphor during storage over a long period of time and causes safety problems which have already arouse wide concern (Zeng and He, 2004). Therefore, a management strategy to avoid the toxic effects of camphor is to use natural borneol instead of synthetic one in different borneol products. Natural borneol is mainly extracted from the essential oils of