Agriculture & Forestry, Vol. 65 Issue 2: 53-58, 2019, Podgorica 53 DOI: 10.17707/AgricultForest.65.2.04 Andjelka ŠĆEPANOVIĆ*, Slađana KRIVOKAPIĆ, Valentina ŠĆEPANOVIC, Vladimir ŽIVKOVIĆ and Svetlana PEROVIĆ 1 CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS AND BIOLOGICAL POTENTIAL OF ESSENTIAL OILS OF HELICHRYSUM ITALICUM (ROTH) G. DON FROM MONTENEGRO SUMMARY The chemical constituents of essential oils isolated from the Helichrysum italicum (Roth) G. Don by steam-distillation were analyzed by GC-MS. The oils were predominantly composed of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons with 52.35%, with γ-curcumene as major constituent (14,11%), β-selinene (11,31%) and α- curcumene (10,42%). The antimicrobial activity of the essential oils was evaluated against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and fungi. Results showed that the oils exhibited antibacterial activities and that Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes and Bacillus subtilis are very sensitive. Keywords: Helichrysum italicum, GC-MS, antimicrobial activity INTRODUCTION The interest in herbal remedies has been significantly increased in the last few decades. In the worldwide, all the natural resources including medicinal plants, fungi and algae are screened for their biological activities (Enazi et al. 2018). Medicinal plants play an important role in the discovery and isolation of new drugs. The essential oils are known as a secondary plant metabolite which form part of naturopathic therapy, are widely known for their antimicrobial properties (Rapper et al. 2013; Hosseini et al. 2016). Various biological characteristics, such as digestive, anti-inflammatory, sedative, antioxidant, antimicrobial, antiviral, and also cytotoxic activities have been attributed to the essential oils (Carvalho et al. 2018). Numerous members of the Asteraceae family are important crop species of cut flowers and ornamentals, as well as being medicinal and aromatic plants, many of which produce essential oils used in pharmaceutical industries (Abad et al. 2013). Helichrysum is one of the important genera for medical purposes. This genus is currently widely distributed in Africa, Madagascar, the Mediterranean basin, Macaronesia, central Asia and India (Juliano et al. 2018) includes more than a thousand taxa that have a higher occurrence in the Mediterranean areas of 1 Andjelka Scepanovic* (corresponding author: andjelka.s@ucg.ac.me), Sladjana Krivokapic, Valentina Scepanovic, Svetlana Perovic, University of Montenegro, Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics, Department of Biology, Dzordza Vasingtona bb, Podgorica, MONTENEGRO; Vladimir Zivkovic, Center for Ecotoxicological Research Podgorica, Boulevard Sarla de Gola 2, Podgorica, MONTENEGRO.. Notes: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. Authorship Form signed online.