Antibacterial activity of high safrole contain essential oils from Piper xylosteoides (Kunth) Steudel

In our continuous search for naturally occurring compounds of scientific and technological relevance, the chemical composition and antibacterial activity of the essential oils of two populations of Piper xylosteoides from Santa Catarina, Brazil, is described. Both oils showed a very high safrole concentration, being the highest value associated to the sample collected in Orleans (84.1%). As the second major compound, the monoterpene alpha-pinene was present with the highest concentration (15.3%) in the Sao Bonifacio sample. The antibacterial activity was examined towards both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. The oils showed weak activity against the bacteria tested. This species can be considered a new economically important natural source of the arylpropanoid safrole.