Chemical composition and biological assays of essential oils of Calamintha nepeta (L.) Savi subsp nepeta (Lamiaceae)

Aerial parts of wild Calamintha nepeta (L.) Savi subsp. nepeta growing spontaneously on the Mediterranean coast (Sardinia Island, Italy) and on the Atlantic coast (Portugal) were used as a matrix for the supercritical extraction of volatile oil with CO2. The collected extracts were analysed by GC-FID and GC-MS methods and their compositions were compared with that of the essential oil isolated by hydrodistillation, but the differences were not relevant. A strong chemical variability was observed in the essential oils depending on the origin of the samples. The results showed the presence of two chemotypes of C. nepeta. In all Italian samples, pulegone, piperitenone oxide and piperitenone were the main components (64.4-39.9%; 2.5-19.1%; 6.4-7.7%); conversely, the oil extracted from Portuguese C. nepeta is predominantly composed of isomenthone (35.8-51.3%), 1,8-cineole (21.1-21.4%) and trans-isopulegone (7.8-6.0%). The minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) and the minimal lethal concentration (MLC) were used to evaluate the antifungal activity of the oils against Candida albicans, Candida tropicalis, Candida krusei, Candida guillermondii, Candida parapsilosis, Cryptococcus neoformans, Trichophyton rubrum, Trichophyton mentagrophytes, Microsporum canis, Microsporum gypseum, Epidermophyton floccosum, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus flavus. The Italian oil, rich in pulegone, exhibited significant antifungal activity against Aspergillus and dermatophyte strains, with MIC values of 0.32-1.25 mu L mL-1.