Multivariate Analysis of Essential Oil Composition of Artemisia annua L. Collected from Different Locations in Korea

Abstract

Artemisia annua L. is distributed throughout the world and it is an important medicinal plant in Korea to treat various human diseases. Recently, A. annua has also been considered to be an effective ethnobotanical drug against COVID-19. A. annua contains an appreciable amount of essential oil with different biological properties. However, the composition of essential oils in aromatic plants can be varied depending on several factors, including geographic, genetic, ecological, etc. Hence, the present study aimed to investigate the chemical diversity of essential oils of Korean A. annua collected from different locations in Korea by multivariate analysis. For this purpose, the seeds of A. annua were collected from 112 different locations in Korea and were grown under the same environmental conditions. Except for nine individuals which decayed during the cultivation, essential oils were isolated from the aerial parts of 103 A. annua individuals (AEOs) using the steam distillation extraction method, and their chemical compositions were determined by GC-MS analysis. Furthermore, a multivariate analysis was performed to distinguish the difference between 103 individuals of A. annua based on their essential oil compositions. The yield of A. annua essential oils ranged from 0.04 to 1.09% (v/w). Based on the GC-MS data, A. annua individuals were grouped into six chemotypes such as artemisia ketone, camphor, β-cubebene, eucalyptol, α-pinene, and β-selinene. The multivariate analysis results revealed that Korean A. annua could be largely grouped into three clusters such as artemisia ketone, eucalyptol, and β-selinene. Among 35 components selected for principal component analysis (PCA), PC1, PC2, and PC3 accounted for 82.55%, 8.74%, and 3.62%, respectively. Although all individuals of A. annua were cultivated under the same environmental conditions, there is an intraspecific chemical diversity that exists within Korean native species.

Comparative Evaluation of Different Extraction Techniques for Separation of Artemisinin from Sweet Wormwood (Artemisia annua L.)

“…The sesquiterpene lactone artemisinin derives from amorpha-4,11-diene through the pathway artemisinic alcohol → artemisinic aldehyde → dihydroartemisinic aldehyde dihydroartemisinate → dihydroartemisinic acid hydroperoxide → artemisinin), while arteannuin b is derived from artemisinic aldehyde and artemisinate [47,48]. Our research confirmed the previous findings that camphor is among the most abundant compound in A. annua extracts [3,4]. Other study conducted by Dobreva et al [49] found 28 different compounds in the subcritical extract of A. annua detected by GC-MS analysis of the supercritical extract obtained with 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane and the major ones were artemisia ketone (26.2%), camphor (10.7%), and eucalyptol (9.1%) followed by artheanin B (3.7%) and arteannuic acid (3.7%).…”

“…Recently, there are more and more scientific investigations on the health impact of plant bioactive compounds. Increasing research interest also concerns Artemisia annua L. (commonly known as sweet wormwood, sweet annie or qinghao), which is an annual plant belonging to the Asteraceae family and grows in spring across the world [1][2][3][4]. Sweet wormwood plant has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for over 2000 years as a remedy for many disorders such as fever or inflammation [5,6].…”

“…Artemisinin is a terpenoid, which can be found in both the leaves and flowers (between 0.01% and 1.4%). The amount of essential oil in sweet wormwood ranged from 0.04% to 1.9% dw [3,10]. The chemical synthesis of artemisinin is uneconomic and complicated.…”

Unveiling the Chemical Profiling Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Activities of Algerian Myrtus communis L. Essential Oils, and Exploring Molecular Docking to Predict the Inhibitory Compounds against Cyclooxygenase-2

“…Thus, the remarkable fluctuations in the EO yield and variability in its chemical composition, even among the same specimens, could be due to the distillation method and analysis conditions [27], or many extrinsic factors like temperature and rainfall [53], the geographic source of the species and the season of harvest [52,54], the stage of ripening, storage conditions of the sample (exposure to light, relative humidity, etc. ), and genetic and growth factors [53,55,56].…”

Five Different Artemisia L. Species Ethanol Extracts’ Phytochemical Composition and Their Antimicrobial and Nematocide Activity

“…The available research data indicate that the biologically active potential of the various Artemisia species is far from being fully studied, and their conventional applications do not utilize their properties fully. Therefore, the current investigations [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ] of the chemical compositions and biological activity of the various Artemisia L. species hold particular significance and are experiencing a real surge as they are presently in the focus of bioorganic and bioanalytical chemistry. The chromatography–mass spectrometry technique is widely acknowledged as the most-appropriate and -informative approach for the analysis of extracts or essential oils, specifically their chemical compositions, due to its ability to combine high separation power with reliable mass spectrometry detection [ 56 ].…”