Chemical constituents and antibacterial activity of the leaf essential oil of Feronia limonia.

The essential oil from the leaves of Feronia limonia was extracted and the chemical constituents and antibacterial activity were studied. The GC and GC-MS analyses revealed that the leaf essential oil of F. limonia contained fourteen compounds representing about 98.4% of the total oil. The major chemical compounds identified were Eudesma-4 (14).11-dine (46.3%), carvacrol (29.6%) and 1,5-cyclodecandine (13.4%). The essential oil was screened for its antibacterial activity against different clinically isolated Gram positive and Gram negative bacterial strains by disc diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration assay. The essential oil exhibited moderate antibacterial activity against all the tested bacterial strains with MIC values ranging from 125 to 500 μg/mL except Proteus mirabilis.