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Chemical Composition and Anti-Inflammatory Activity of Essential Oils, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Products Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 June 2026 | Viewed by 1001

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Department of Biological, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies (STEBICEF), University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Parco d’Orleans II, Bldg. 17, 90123 Palermo, Italy
Interests: natural product chemistry; triterpenes; semisynthesis of bioactive compounds
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The plant kingdom is the main source of chemical diversity from which thousands of organic compounds are produced, including the components of essential oils.

Nature remains the more efficient and imaginative “synthetic chemist”, and this impressive mass of chemical diversity is crucial for the development of a potentially infinite number of new applications in the context of agriculture, food science and pharmacology, including interesting applications of plant essential oils in human health chemoprevention. The control of general and local inflammation is key to the chemo-preventive action of plant products toward several pathologies, and essential oil research plays an important role in this context.

The isolation and the chemical characterization of essential oils from plant species remains a fascinating challenge for natural product researchers.

This Special Issue will mainly address, but not exclusively, recent research concerning new applications related to the anti-inflammatory activity of essential oils and the investigation of the mechanism of action of the whole complex mixture, as well as of the pure components both at post-transcriptional and post-translational levels. Research that clarifies the well-known synergistic paradigm, i.e., the entire essential oil being more effective than its pure main components, is highly welcome.

Dr. Gianfranco Fontana
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • essential oils
  • anti-inflammatory activity
  • chemo-prevention
  • natural products
  • inflammation cascade

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

26 pages, 876 KB  
Article
Impact of Dry and Rainy Seasons on the Chemical Profile and Antioxidant Activity of Lippia alba Essential Oil
by Rodrigo Dias Alves, João Pedro Bauman Quieregati, Julia Samara Pereira de Souza, Maria Helena Brandão-Silva, Ariana Pereira da Silva, Katia Castanho Scortecci, Jacqueline do Carmo Barreto and Hugo Alexandre Oliveira Rocha
Molecules 2026, 31(6), 1035; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules31061035 - 20 Mar 2026
Viewed by 582
Abstract
Seasonal environmental conditions can modulate the chemical composition and biological activity of essential oils from medicinal plants. This study investigated the phytochemical profile, antioxidant potential, cytotoxic activity, and cytoprotective effects of Lippia alba essential oils collected during dry and rainy seasons. Gas chromatography [...] Read more.
Seasonal environmental conditions can modulate the chemical composition and biological activity of essential oils from medicinal plants. This study investigated the phytochemical profile, antioxidant potential, cytotoxic activity, and cytoprotective effects of Lippia alba essential oils collected during dry and rainy seasons. Gas chromatography analysis revealed that all samples preserved a citral chemotype. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) confirmed citral as the primary discriminant metabolite, while quantitative seasonal variations were mainly associated with minor oxygenated monoterpenes, particularly geraniol, carvone, and nerolidol. The essential oil obtained during the rainy season (A5T–RS) exhibited significantly higher antioxidant activity, as determined by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), reducing power, total antioxidant capacity, and hydrogen peroxide scavenging assays. Intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) evaluation using the 2′,7′-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate (DCFH-DA) method demonstrated that both oils reduced oxidative stress in murine fibroblasts—L929, with enhanced cytoprotective effects observed for A5T–RS. Cytotoxicity assays against non-tumor (murine fibroblast-NIH/3T3, L929, Chinese hamster ovary—CHO-K1) and tumor (human cervical carcinoma—HeLa, and human hepatocellular carcinoma—HepG2) cell lines revealed selective antiproliferative activity, with tumor cells displaying greater sensitivity, particularly to the rainy-season oil. These results demonstrate that seasonal metabolomic modulation enhances the biological performance of L. alba essential oil without altering its chemotypic identity, highlighting the importance of environmental factors in the development of bioactive plant-derived products. Full article
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