Biochemical Systematics and Ecology 35 (2007) 670e675
www.elsevier.com/locate/biochemsyseco
Chemical composition and larvicidal activity of
essential oils from Piper species
Selene Maia de Morais a,*, Valdir Alves Facundo b, Luciana Medeiros Bertini c,
Eveline Solon Barreira Cavalcanti a, Jo~ao Francisco dos Anjos Júnior b,
Silane Aparecida Ferreira b, Edy Sousa de Brito d, Manoel Alves de Souza Neto d
a
Department of Chemistry, Ceara State University, Av. Paranjana 1700, Campus do Itaperi, CEP 60740-000, Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil
b
Department of Chemistry, Federal University of Rondônia, Br 364, Km 9.5, CEP 78900-500, Porto Velho, Rondônia, Brazil
c
Department of Organic and Inorganic Chemistry, Federal University of Ceara, Pici Campus, CEP 60021-970, Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil
d
Embrapa Agroindústria Tropical, Rua Dra. Sara Mesquita, 2270, Planalto do Pici, CEP 60511-110, Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil
Received 7 December 2006; accepted 5 May 2007
Abstract
The larvicidal activity of essential oils of four species of Piper from the Amazon Forest was tested using third-instar larvae of
Aedes aegypti. The oils were extracted by steam distillation and analyzed by GC and GCeMS. The main components isolated from
each Piper species were as follows: viridiflorol (27.50%), aromadendrene (15.55%) and b-selinene (10.50%) from Piper gaudichaudianum; b-selinene (15.77%) and caryophyllene oxide (16.63%) from Piper humaytanum; dillapiol (54.70%) and myristicin
(25.61%) from Piper permucronatum; and asaricin (27.37%) and myristicin (20.26%) from Piper hostmanianum. Amongst all essential oils tested, the most active against larvae of A. aegypti was the oil extracted from P. permucronatum, with a LC50 ¼ 36 mg/ml
(LC90 ¼ 47 mg/ml), followed by the essential oil of P. hostmanianum, with a LC50 ¼ 54 mg/ml (LC90 ¼ 72 mg/ml). The oils with
higher content of arylpropanoids were more active against larvae of A. aegypti.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Larvicidal activity; Essential oil; Piperaceae; Aedes aegypti; Dillapiol
1. Introduction
The genus Piper (Piperaceae) is largely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Chemical studies have shown that the genus Piper has many components including unsaturated amides, flavonoids, lignans, aristolactams, long and short chain esters, terpenes, steroids, propenylphenols, and alkaloids (Parmar et al., 1997, 1998;
Navickiene et al., 2000; Facundo et al., 2005). It is well established that secondary metabolites play an important
role in plant chemical defense. The genus Piper has been an important source of secondary metabolites which
* Corresponding author. Department of Chemistry, Ceara State University, Rua Ana Bilhar 601, Apto. 400, Meireles, CEP 60740-000, Fortaleza,
Ceara, Brazil. Tel.: þ55 85 242681; fax: þ55 85 2429715.
E-mail address: [email protected] (S.M. de Morais).
0305-1978/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.bse.2007.05.002
S.M. de Morais et al. / Biochemical Systematics and Ecology 35 (2007) 670e675
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