Helichrysum italicum (Roth) G. Don essential oil: composition and potential antineoplastic effect.

The antitumor effect of Helichrysum species has been rarely documented in literature. Thus, in the present work, the potential antineoplastic properties of the essential oil extracted from Helichrysum italicum (Roth) G. Don flower heads by hydrodistillation were investigated. The biochemical profile of the essential oil was characterized by GCMS analysis: Neryl acetate (33.97%), a-Pinene (28.50%), Nerol (7.97%), Neryl phenylacetate (7.11%) and b-Caryophyllene (5.71%) were the most abundant molecules of the phytocomplex. An absolute quantitation of five terpens (D-Limonene, b-Linalool, a-Terpineol, Nerol, and Neryl acetate) was also carried out, to further typify the oil chemotype. The antiproliferative effect of the essential oil was assessed on B16F10 murine melanoma cells, by Trypan Blue exclusion test and MTT assay. These preliminary analyses demonstrated that H. italicum essential oil was able to significantly inhibit tumor cell growth, in a dose and time-dependent manner, inducing only low levels of cytotoxicity. Probably, the bioactivity of this oil against the B16F10 cells was due to its elevated antioxidant power, which was measured by three different in vitro tests (DPPH, ABTS and FRAP). According to all these results, H. italicum essential oil might be considered a promising natural source of new anticancer compounds